Walking the Camino de Santiago
Praise God in His angels and in His saints! At about 3:00 PM on the Memorial of Saint Athanasius, the second of May 2016, we arrived at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. On the way in we met Anita, who escorted the three of us – Francine, Rebecca, and myself – to the cathedral Plaza. Afterwards, secured beds […]
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Galicia has been uncharacteristically cool and sunny, enabling us to do some fairly decent long-distance days. Oh, the forests of Galicia! So beautiful, and so otherworldly. As we came down from crossing our third mountain range, the clouds poured into the valleys below us like the sea lapping on the shore. Stories and poems have tumbled through my head […]
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Only 17.5 km today, but the last 8 km included a rough, rocky climb of almost 700 m as we left El Bierzo behind and entered our fourth Spanish kingdom: Galicia. We left early and had our second breakfast in Vega de Valcarce. By the time we stopped for a drink at a funky albergue/bar in La Faba called “El […]
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After Rabanal, we crested the Cordillera Cantábrica at Cruz de Ferro. Traditionally, one leaves a stone at the foot of the cross there. This is the accompanying prayer: Lord, may this stone, a symbol of my efforts on the pilgrimage that I lay at the foot of the cross of the Savior, one day weigh the balance in favor of my […]
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We arrived in Rabanal del Camino three years to the day since the last time we were here, though not by any conscious design on our part. We have been walking with a young Dutchman named Stijn, and we ran into our old friend Rebecca again a couple of times during today’s walk. It has become a glorious, sunny afternoon. […]
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We are spending the night in Sahagún. For those of you who are fans of “Babylon Five”, this will sound uncomfortably close to “Z’ha’dum“. It was a beautiful day for walking – cool and sunny. A welcome change from the recent weeks. We had our second breakfast at the Albergue Jacques de Molay in the village of Terradillos de Templarios, […]
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Each day of our pilgrimage, it has pleased God to send us a new trial. If it is not hills to climb, then it is rain. If it is not rain, then mud. If not mud, then a driving wind. Today, it pleased God to send us all of these in succession. To these trials must be added the […]
» Read moreFor the past two days walking out ofBurgos, we have been entering into the Meseta. This is the vast plateau that sits in the center of Spain. We will be walking this for about the next week or so. And it is flat. Well, the top is flat, anyway. Most of the towns are located in deep valleys carved out […]
» Read moreWe have been experiencing a protracted zone of low bandwidth and little Wi-Fi. This makes it extremely difficult to post photos. In particular, I am something like 400 photos behind in updating my Flickr account. Weirdly, it is much easier to upload photos to Facebook. The bandwidth problem has also made updating the blog somewhat sporadic. For this, I apologize. […]
» Read moreThis morning we arrived in Burgos, and we immediately went to tour the cathedral. What can one say about this magnificent edifice? It is simply one of the marvels of architecture and art. Eventually my photos will load, but this is hampered by lack of wifi and lack of bandwidth. To give a small idea of its splendour, consider this: the […]
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