Pilgrims on the Way

Vespers and Mass yesterday evening with the Benedictine sisters ended with the priest conferring individual blessings on each of us pilgrims.  Last night was just your average Tuesday night in León. That means that the streets were full of people talking and laughing in the outside terraces of cafés and bars, couples walking arm in arm through the streets, the […]

For no good reason, I was awake and packed before 6:30 AM. We left at 7 AM precisely, and soon Tara and I were walking through urban sprawl. It was cold enough that I wore gloves.  At some point, the Camino passed a picnic area and veered right, following the usual wide white gravel path. In the darkness, I couldn’t […]

Last night after a large communal dinner, which we ate outside in the plaza in front of the albergue, a group of us went up to a nearby hill to watch the incredible sunset. There’s an arch of stone and brick up on the hill, which is all that’s left of the original village church. The story goes that the […]

We had a great dinner last night in a dining hall full of pilgrims. The food was some of the best I’ve had in Spain, and the company, from all over the world, was engaging. I stayed up rather later than I intended. Today, most of the lands that I walked through were once controlled by the Order of the […]

Last evening after Vespers I had a delightful time touring the church of Santa María de Blanca with Vicky from New Mexico. I first met her back in Estella when we were both trying to get into the same locked church.  She’s a comparative religions professor, and together we deciphered some things about the fabric of the church, including the […]

Last night I took the pilgrim dinner in the albergue. We were seated at long tables, with pilgrims from around the world. I had a delightful conversation with a photographer from Georgia (USA) named Joseph. He’s working through some things on this Camino, as are most of us. Joseph crossed the Pyrenees in the same storm I did, and he […]

Last night I had a great time conversing at dinner with a couple of retired German pilgrims, Marcus and Hubert, as well as a younger French guy named Thomas who started in Le Puy about a week before I did.  Hubert is currently walking his third Camino this year. In the spring, he walked the Portuguese with his daughter, later in […]

Once again up early in an effort to beat the heat. I was up and packed before 6 AM and out the door ten minutes later.  San Juan de Ortega is a tiny village – really most of it is just the buildings of the old monastery – and so the street lights ended after less than 50 m from […]