Camino Photo of the Day: Villafranca Montes de Oca
We arrive in Villafranca Montes de Oca, looking for some lunch. There are a handful of towns on the Camino named Villafranca (the French village). This is because as the Camino road began to be claimed from bandits and Moors, the local nobility encouraged settlers to settle along the Way. The settlers – whatever region they might have been from – were called Franks.
This particular Villafranca is a little different from others, in that the original village (somewhat south of here) predates the reconquest by quite a long time. The Romans named the original settlement Auca, and after the fall of the Empire it became a Catholic Cathedral town under the Visigoths before the invading Moslems destroyed it in the 8th century.
Anyway – lunch!
Date: 11 April 2013
Place: entering Villafranca Montes de Oca (Province of Burgos, Castilla y León, Spain)
Today started: somewhere just before Belorado (Province of Burgos, Castilla y León, Spain)
