Author: Thom

Francine stands in the cloisters overlooking the garden of the Cathedral in Pamplona. You can get a good idea of the scale of this place. It’s big! She’s looking at the tomb of one of the countless clerics buried within the Cathedral complex. Date: 02 April 2016 Place: Pamplona (Navarra, Spain)

This is the layout for most of the side altars at the Pamplona Cathedral – indeed, in most of the larger churches we saw in Spain. They are tucked into side niches, perfectly open to the main part of the church with perhaps only a rail separating them from the nave. This is somewhat similar to most Catholic church designs […]

This is a closeup of the altar of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, the photo of which I posted yesterday. Note the Jacobean Cross and shell! That Santiago certainly gets around; you will see his symbols everywhere on the Camino, sometimes in likely places, and sometimes in the most unlikely. Date: 02 April 2016 Place: Pamplona (Navarra, Spain)

Pamplona’s Cathedral contains a slew of side-chapels. Most are altars set into niches in the Cathedral’s Gothic interior, but a couple are actually full chapels in their own right. This one contains the tabernacle containing Jesus Himself. I spent a moment here after Mass and before touring the Cathedral and Museum and taking about 200 photos… Date: 02 April 2016 […]

The interior of Pamplona’s Cathedral of Santa María la Real is about as solidly Gothic as anything. It does not have the massive stained glass windows of other Gothic Cathedrals in Spain and France, but what it lacks in glass it makes up for in stone. This is a shot of the ceiling in the nave. The Mass was lovely, […]

So this is just your average shop in the old city center of Pamplona. Our plan was to spend a day exploring the city. It was one of my favourite places in my first Camino. But before we could do that, Francine needed to take advantage of Spain’s socialized health care and purchase medicine for her feet at stupid cheap […]

I kind of love this sign, which appears above the entrance of a shop in Pamplona. It pretty much says almost everything about the city that you need to know, from a visitor’s perspective. San Fermin. Bulls. Hemmingway. Date: 02 April 2016 Place: Pamplona (Navarra, Spain)

We first met these two sisters from Colorado in Zubiri, I think. Certainly, we stayed in the same albergue with them there. We spent some time walking with them on April 1st, as they were much faster than us, but prone to taking wrong turns and then having to catch up. Together, we all walked into Pamplona. They are absolutely […]