Pilgrims on the Way

When I first visited León in 2013, my tour of the Cathedral was cut short. And Francine never got to see it at all. We were determined that we would visit it first – three years to the day later. Most Gothic cathedrals took centuries to complete. As a result of different architects (and bishops!) over the course of that […]

The city center of León is filled with fun and whimsical shops. Here is the first of what will be a number of examples. This is Gnomos. They sell nothing but gnomes – and hats. It immediately made me think of my friend Adam, for reasons best left vague. Like most shops in Spain in my experience, they don’t open […]

One after another in León we kept running into old friends from much earlier in our Camino. Here is Francine with Matthias, the German we met on day one. He was spending a couple of days in the city resting from an injury. He’s entitled – he walked all the way from his door in Köln. We also met up […]

In the pre-dawn hours of April 19, 2016, Francine and I took the train from Sahagún to León. It was basically a commuter trip. Once we got into the city, we checked into the Albergue de Peregrinos San Francisco de Asís en León, a former Capuchin monastery, where we got a room. Sort of a tiny suite, actually. Then we […]

Francine can tell you more about these lovely German (Austrian? Swiss?) ladies we ran into several times on the Camino. This was the last time we saw them, and I’m glad we got this photo, as they were delightful. They are standing in front of the Irish pub from yesterday’s photo. Date: 18 April 2016 Place: Sahagún (Castilla y León, […]

Given my posts over the past days, you would be forgiven for thinking that Sahagún was nothing but ruins. It is not! As proof, here is Francine in the only Irish pub we found on the Camino. She’s got her serious face on for the photo, but we had a great time with our fellow pilgrims in Sahagún. Date: 18 […]

This will be my final photo in this series of the magnificent ruins of the Monasterio Real de San Benito in Sahagún. This time, I’ve provided Francine for scale, as she walks through their stark beauty. They remain a sad reminder of the magnificent devotion of a thousand years of Benedictine monks and their brutal suppression over just a few […]

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: 18 April 2016 Place: Sahagún (Castilla y León, Spain)

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 auctioned off, block by block. Ruins of the various parts of the old Royal Monastery of Saint Benedict rise like ghosts throughout the central portions of modern Sahagún. The medieval town of Sahagún grew […]