Walking the Camino de Santiago
As you can see from the photo and the map below, the Camino offers two options at the village of Calzada del Coto. The two options don’t properly meet back up until Mansilla de las Mulas, some 32 kilometers down the road. It was already 1:30 when we passed this marker, so we which way we went had to be […]
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After Sahagún, the Camino strikes out along a rural highway. It is depressingly flat and beastly hot and sunny. The highway next door is also, shall we say, less than optimal. Some day, these young trees will provide shade to future pilgrims. Perhaps even as soon as later in the Spring! For now, it was nearly enough to live in […]
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On the Camino, livestock always have the right of way. As you leave Sahagún, the Camino crosses the Puente Canto – the “singing bridge” – over the Río Cea. The Roman bridge here is long gone, though the current 18th century bridge is built in the Roman style. It was here that we were confronted by this flock, lead by […]
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The last day of Sahagún Week! Eamon and I ducked into a tiny church near to the ruins, perhaps even part of the original monastery complex. This was just a few weeks after Easter, so many of the statues that are paraded through the streets during Holy Week were still in the aisles of the church. There was even a […]
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Day four of Sahagún Week! Eamon walks through the center of Sahagún. Ahead of him is another portion of Sahagún’s ruined Monasterio Real de San Benito. Several stark reminders of the former glory of this great abbey stand throughout the town center, with streets and shops standing in the middle of what was once the great monastic complex and church. Date: […]
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Day three of Sahagún Week! Sahagún is a city of ruins. Here I stand posing with a statue of a traditional pilgrim’s staff in front of what was once el Monasterio Real de San Benito. In 1820, the Spanish government dissolved the monasteries. The monks were turned out into the street. Moveable goods were plundered. Land and buildings were seized and […]
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Day two of Sahagún Week! This funky medieval building is across the street from yesterday’s statue. The surrounding buildings are decidedly more modern, as you can see. What this building is and how it survived I’ve no idea. Virtually all of the nearby buildings, other than a church and an old monastery, appear to have been built in the 20th […]
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Day one of Sahagún Week! This whimsical larger-than-life statue of Santiago greets pilgrims entering the town center of Sahagún. He stands in front of an albergue that appears to have once been a monastery and directly across the street from a hostal, a restaurant, and a funky medieval building we’ll be featuring tomorrow. Date: 17 April 2013Place: Sahagún (Province of […]
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Sahagún is what I call a “pilgrim-friendly” town. Despite its modest population (about 2,500), it boasts half a dozen albergues and hostals, numerous bars and restaurants including an Irish Pub, and a bewildering number of churches. Although this year we only stopped for a long lunch, the town was memorable enough that when Francine and I came back to the […]
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After crossing the highway again (this time going under rather than over) we arrive in Sahagún. Dirt road gives way to asphalt, farms to grain elevators, and eventually open countryside to narrow streets. We are soon walking along railroad tracks. This is a proper town. Although it’s not much bigger than Carrión de los Condes – where we stayed two […]
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