Pilgrims on the Way

The sign and the entrance to the city may not look like much, but Astorga is one of my favourite Camino towns. It has a number of beautiful churches, including a wonderful Gothic(ish) cathedral. There are museums dedicated to chocolate, as well as one housed in the old Episcopal Palace designed by Antoni Gaudí. There’s evidence that people have been […]

They left up part of the original church. It serves as the bell tower for a 20th-century meeting hall-style building that wouldn’t be out of place anywhere in suburban Protestant America. It’s positively disjointed and hideous. Why, oh why would you do that? Date: 20 April 2016 Place: San Justo de la Vega (Castilla y León, Spain) Today’s map:

A Camino road sign for all the Charleses in your life. Date: 20 April 2016 Place: San Justo de la Vega (Castilla y León, Spain) Today’s map:

There is some great public art on the Camino. This larger-than-life pilgrim stands on the Camino route as it descends into the valley of the Río Tuerto and the village of San Justo de la Vega and the city of Astorga beyond. I have imitated this statue no more than dozens of times on any given Camino day. Date: 20 […]

The Camino drops into Astorga following a relatively steep paved road. Great for bicycles, not so much for those on foot. Still, they have thoughtfully provided benches every so often. In the foreground, you can see the village of San Justo de la Vega, and just beyond that the city of Astorga. Date: 20 April 2016 Place: Approaching San Justo […]

So after several hours of mucking about, we come to a broad, dry path, for which we are extremely grateful. Someone has thoughtfully marked out for us the way to continue. Date: 20 April 2016 Place: Approaching San Justo de la Vega (Castilla y León, Spain) Today’s map:

After a brief respite, and what should have been our third and final warning, we came to this. Miles and miles of this. The surface of Mars. The clay stuck to the bottom of our shoes in layers that we had to scrape off every dozen steps. Puddles were impossible to avoid for long. There was no dry or firm […]

After we’d made it past the initial morass, the Way was clear for some time. It wouldn’t last. But for now, proper drainage for the win! You can already see the final omen, though, in the tire tracks of an agricultural vehicle on the road. Further on, these tracks would tear up the wet clay into something resembling no-man’s land. […]

Ten minutes past our first warning, we came to a stretch of red clay mud that covered the Way from side to side for a length of maybe a dozen yards. It was slow, sticky going. Still, we were undeterred: we could see the end of the mess, and the road didn’t look too bad after that. Date: 20 April […]

With the villages of Villares de Órbigo and Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias firmly behind us, we head back out into the rural countryside. This rolling landscape is dominated by a red clay soil. Less than twenty minutes out, we passed this sight. Had we any brains at all, we would have realized a warning when we saw it. Date: 20 April […]