Author: Thom

The park went on and on and on and on. At this signpost, we left the Camino briefly for a restroom break and, if I remember correctly, ice cream. You can see the building with the restrooms and a little shop just past the crest of the hill in this photo. The park just sort of ends in a field, […]

This is a closeup of the Marian shrine I mentioned yesterday. This is a reproduction of the statue of Nuestra Señora del Rocío, perhaps originally Our Lady of Remedies, the original of which is located in the Ermita del Rocío in Andalusia. You really can’t get more Spanish Baroque than this. When I first saw this on my 2013 Camino, […]

Still walking through that park leaving Logroño. Taking a little rest. I think Francine is fiddling about with the photo she took of the Marian shrine in the foreground. Date: 07 April 2016 Place: Logroño (La Rioja, Spain) Map of the day:

And so it begins. The Camino route out of Logroño goes through a massive urban park. How massive? This is part of it here – and it looks pretty darn rural, no? There are long looping paths for walking and biking, lakes with old men fishing, playgrounds with hordes of children, assorted gardens, and even shrines. It’s enormous and kind […]

My apologies for the lateness of today’s post. The post queue was empty, I served at a funeral this morning, and I’ve been working ever since. Normally I try to schedule these to post at about 8:00 AM, but here it is after 4:00 PM, and I’m just getting started. To catch up: we’re leaving Logroño. We find this art […]

Three years ago, a group of four pilgrims stopped here for a beer. My friend Eamon from New Zealand and I allowed ourselves to be taken here by a Berliner and a Bavarian – Viola and Petra – who were desperate for a proper German beer. Well, I can’t say the beer was great, but the company certainly was. Santa […]

The art on the Camino is fascinating. Obviously, the older art – say, before the end of the last century – is all religious. Kind of obvious, I should think, for a pilgrimage route. Much of the modern art, however, is not so much about the object of the pilgrimage as about the pilgrims themselves. Seems appropriate for our myopic, […]

Here’s a thing you don’t see in the United States very often: not only a street named after a saint, but a statue of the saint himself next to the street sign! There are many examples of these along the Camino, and I never tire of them. This was part of our odyssey in looking for a cash machine. We […]

They say that a Basque, like an Elephant, never forgets. Certainly, that seems to be the message of this mural, found in the place we stopped for lunch. I find this utterly delightful. It did not, however, help me find the restrooms. Date: 07 April 2016 Place: Logroño (La Rioja, Spain) Map of the day: