Author: Thom

Part of this morning’s second breakfast was pistachios for just a euro. Huzzah! Here we see Henny, my mascot from Santo Domingo, posing with the pistachio machine. There was a pistachio machine! Date: 12 April 2013Place: Agés (Province of Burgos, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: San Juan de Ortega (Province of Burgos, Castilla y León, Spain)

We picked up a quick snack in this local shop, which sufficed for second breakfast. There were outdoor tables and a goodly number of pilgrims coming through. Truth be told, there were several cafés in evidence in this little village, and they all looked pretty promising. Date: 12 April 2013Place: Agés (Province of Burgos, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: San […]

Our first village of the day was Agés, and I was keen to find something resembling second breakfast. It’s about 9:00, and we’ve been walking about an hour. Agés is a typical village in this section of the Camino. The name derives from Arabic, and there is documentation establishing that there was a church here sometime before 972. It’s said […]

Just before the village of Agés, we came upon these stone circles, just off the Way. They are striking, and though the stones are small, the pattern they form is quite large. Considering the rills under the stones, it appears that these patterns are constantly renewed as pilgrims and others place new stones atop the old. What it means, I’ve […]

Here we see Eamon (way ahead as usual!) and Viola about twenty minutes into our morning, walking from San Juan de Ortega towards the city of Burgos. Breakfast was a roll and some cheese, along with a healthy dose of café con leche. The morning was windy, the same wind we had been fighting off and on for days now. […]

Here’s one last look at the dining area of the Hospederia de San Juan de Ortega during the best meal I’ve ever had. Although the photo is a little fuzzy, you will see three of the friends we made on this Camino: on the far left in the plaid shirt is Radosław from Poland, and the young couple on the […]

Here we see Viola and another pilgrim in the Hobbity-inn style dining area of the Hospederia de San Juan de Ortega. It was here, probably an hour and a half after this photo was taken, that I ate the best meal of my life. I honestly don’t remember the first course at all, but the main course was three porkchops […]

You might think that the body of San Juan de Ortega rests in the magnificent Hispano-Flemish Gothic sepulchre located in his church. You would be forgiven for thinking so, but as we discovered yesterday, the saint is laid in a rather plain stone casket elsewhere in the church. No, this mortuary monument is in fact entirely empty. It is said that […]

Set against what I can only presume was the reredos of the original altar in this church is the humble tomb of a great saint. It was originally in a nearby chapel, where it was covered with an ornate wooden baldachin. The tomb was opened in the 15th century when it was moved here, and again in the 1960s, when […]

The little church of San Nicolás de Bari de San Juan de Ortega is largely undecorated except for three places: the sanctuary, the tomb of San Juan de Ortega, and as shown here, the ceiling. These tongues of flame are no doubt meant to remind the visitor of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples at Pentecost. I […]