Pilgrims on the Way

It seems appropriate for Christmas Eve to post a photo about anticipation and waiting! In Conques, I stayed at the abbey’s gîte. As we waited for our turn to sign in, we congregated in this little courtyard. You can see the bags of those waiting, and if you’ve got an eagle eye, you might spot my bag, hat, and sticks. […]

After taking my leave of Ávila, I continued to explore the beautiful medieval village of Conques. You could see the abbey church from basically everywhere, and the streets were full of locals, pilgrims, hikers, and tourists. By this point, I was looking for a more substantial lunch, so as I wandered about, I kept an eye open for a likely […]

I tried to find a decent vantage point to photograph the façade of the abbey church of Sainte-Foy de Conques. The little square in front, the Place du Parvis, is too narrow to get a good shot, so I backed up into a street. The building directly behind the church is the abbey itself, and I would be staying in […]

After exploring for a while, I left the abbey church to see the village of Conques and to find some lunch. This is the view from the church doors. This village is one of the most perfectly preserved medieval villages I visited. And unlike some others on the Camino, this was not a museum like Colonial Williamsburg for example, but […]

Walking through the ambulatory in the Abbey of Sainte-Foy in Conques, you find the shrine of the saint’s relics directly behind the high altar. The stained glass image behind the metal grill is a 21st-century image based on her bejeweled 11th-century reliquary, which itself is usually kept in the nearby museum. I’m including a bonus photo of the stained glass […]

After Mass—which was beautiful—I set about exploring the abbey church. The architecture is just stunning, as I hope this look up over the sanctuary shows. While I’m not a fan of the modern ambo and main altar, they do fit in with the fabric of the place. The icon on the left is Sainte-Foy. The shrine of her relics is […]

In addition to holding the relics of Sainte-Foy and therefore being a site of pilgrimage in itself, Conques is the first major religious site on the pilgrimage route from Le Puy-en-Velay to Santiago de Compostela. Of course there is a small shrine to Saint James the Apostle in his depiction as a pilgrim (Santiago Peregrino / Saint-Jacques Pèlerin). While this […]

As I briefly explored the abbey church before Mass, I visited the chapel of Sainte-Foy. During my research into the route, I had come to love this little saint. She was a 2nd-century child martyr, and her relics have been held in this church (and its smaller predecessors) since the 9th century. The relics are not, however, in this chapel […]