Category: Map

The flag of the Knights of Malta hangs over an albergue in Hospital de Órbigo. Do they actually operate this hostal, as they did here seven hundred years ago? Or is it just hung in homage to the town’s history? And why are the sidewalks so narrow? Date: 20 April 2016 Place: Hospital de Órbigo (Castilla y León, Spain) Today’s […]

The Camino forms the spine of the medieval portion of the town of Hospital de Órbigo. As I mentioned yesterday, the town was named for a pilgrim hostal once maintained by the Knights Hospitaller If you look carefully, you can see flags of the Knights of Malta in front of the more modern albergue down the street. Date: 20 April […]

Today’s photo isn’t a photo – it’s a map. You’ll have to click through to see the full size. It occurs to me that I’ve not been particularly clear about the length of our “cheats” on our 2016 Camino. The map below shows the route we took in blue crayon. I have indicated where we took bus and train. The […]

The train station is just a few blocks from our albergue. This photo is here because the time had come to make a painful decision. We’ve been beset by injuries, rain, and the results of epic rain – mud and flood. Several times, two-day stretches of the Camino have taken us three days. Since we had time constraints – the […]

Finally, we have arrived in the town of Sahagún – pronounced disturbingly like Z’ha’dum for you Babylon-5 fans. This is where we elected to stay the night: Albergue Viatoris. The place is inexpensive, quirky, cavernous, and comfortable with a great common room divided into pods of two or three bunks each. Sahagún is one of the most pilgrim-friendly and utterly […]

Today’s photo complements yesterday’s. This time it’s me with the statue of the guy who put Sahagún on the map as an important waystation on the Camino. Bernardo de Sédirac became the first Cluniac Abbot of Sahagún and kicked off a reform of northern Spain’s monasteries. In the statue he is depicted as carrying Saint Benedict’s Rule, emblazoned with the […]

At the Spanish Camino’s halfway point are monumental statues of King Alfonso VI “El Bravo” of León, Castille, and Galicia (1065 – 1109) and Abbot Bernardo de Sédirac of Sahagún (d. 1125). These two gentlemen can fairly be said to have unified northern Spain and created the Crown of Castille as the premiere economic, religious, and military power in Iberia. […]

As with yesterday’s photo, we are just outside of the town of Sahagún at the halfway point in the Spanish portion of the Camino Francés. We spent some time resting here, thinking over our progress and the days to come. For today, it would be enough to finish the walk into town and find an albergue. Date: 18 April 2016 […]

This chapel and its associated monuments, just outside of the town of Sahagún, is the halfway point in the Spanish portion of the Camino Francés. It’s an interesting spot and worth spending a moment to explore, but also to simply sit and rest and contemplate that half your journey is now over. And half is yet to come. So of […]

Unlike the three signs when we entered Palencia Province, there is only one lone marker telling you that you are leaving. It sits, forlorn, at the base of a snazzy modern bridge over the now much wider N-120 Highway – a bridge that we must cross. It’s a harrowing journey for anybody with a problem with heights. Bonus photo! Closeup […]