Walking the Camino de Santiago
This is the entrance to the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de La Calle (Church of Our Lady of the Road) in Redicilla del Camino. The “Calle” of course is the Camino in this case. I love doors (as you know), but I particularly enjoy these benches, which are found all over this section of the Way. The white paint on […]
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The Spaniards love their heraldry, and the village of Redecilla del Camino is no exception. There were several such carved arms up on the sides of older houses, but this was pretty much the most spectacular. The Way so far this morning has been relatively flat and easy, but Francine was a little out of it – I described it […]
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We quickly come to our first Castillian village, Redecilla del Camino. Here we see our second sign welcoming us to Castilla y León. It’s a bit more modest than the previous one. We also see our first Castillian town sign, complete with map. Every village, every town, every city has one of these. Some are more helpful than others. The […]
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With this gigantic sign in the middle of nowhere, we leave La Rioja and enter Castilla y León. We are now entering the second Kingdom of our Camino, having left Navarra far behind. Even with this photo, it’s difficult to get a handle on how truly immense this sign is, made even more so by its isolation from any other […]
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We are still in the long shadow of Grañón just after sunrise. Soon, the sun will burn away the mist, but for now, we are still in the cool shadow of the oncoming storm. The steeple you see is the parish church where we stayed the night. The stormy skies are a portent of the days to come. Date: 10 […]
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That shadow you see across the valley is the shadow of the town of Grañón. The sun is barely above the horizon. The sky seems poised to break into storm at any minute, and far below in the shadow of nature and civilization both, Francine roars her defiance and joy. Or, it’s just possible that she’s singing show tunes. Date: […]
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A new day! We begin walking on April 10 about dawn. First breakfast was at the albergue, and we begin in high spirits, buoyed by the happy memory of the fantastic albergue parroquial de San Juan Bautista in Grañón. Date: 10 April 2016 Place: Leaving Grañón (La Rioja, Spain) Maps!
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The evening in San Juan Bautista in Grañón ended with Compline in the choir loft. The walls of the loft were lined with choir stalls, at the center of which stood a giant, four-sided turning music stand that was obviously intended for the six-foot tall psalters produced en masse in the Middle Ages. One of the choir stalls featured this […]
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For today’s photo, I cheated. Here are five photos that kind of sum up the night at Grañón. Evening Mass was celebrated in a chapel of the church below. Most interesting altarpiece of the humiliation of Christ. Mass was followed by a communal meal, which I very much enjoyed. Not many albergues do this, which is too bad since it […]
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I took a lot of photos at the Grañón Albergue because in my head it is the absolute epitome of what a small albergue should be: intimate, eclectic, homey, and well-loved. This particular photo sums up the feeling of the place. There were guitars and ukeleles, and so of course song broke out! The pilgrims are playing and singing a […]
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