Author: Thom

This Santiago cross with the shell emblem is located on the Camino just past the local parish church of San Tirso in Palas de Rei, embedded in a narrow stone-paved street. I’ve always liked this image, and at one point I considered getting a tattoo of it. Ultimately, I opted for something different from a similarly embedded sign in Navarrete. […]

This statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Perpetuo Socorro) is in a courtyard next to the local parish church of San Tirso in Palas de Rei. Just past this church and shrine, the Camino takes a sudden turn, going sharply downhill on a narrow stone-paved street before suddenly dumping pilgrims in the modern urban streets of downtown Palas de […]

At about five o’clock in the evening that day, we walked into the town of Palas de Rei, our intended destination. Although I was convinced that we were running quite late, as you can see we entered with a crowd of pilgrims all running on roughly the same schedule as us. Note that despite the name, there is no palace […]

Just down the road from the ants, this is the little country church of Santiago de Lestedo. In this one photo, you can see a number of the things that characterize the Catholic culture of Spain, including a Cruceiro and the typical parish graveyard. While the village of Lestedo boasts a population of nine, the parish itself contains several of […]

These ants are found at an unforgettable albergue/café in the village of Portos, about 6 km before Palas de Rei. The place is called A Paso de Formiga, which means something like “at the pace of an ant”. It has a lovely outdoor dining area (if you don’t mind the giant ants), and we’ve stopped here for a meal or […]

This disused cart is just one of many such carts and wagons we saw in rural Galicia on our first Camino. While I think it’s sad that these beautiful and traditional forms of transit are left to rot in the fields, I can certainly understand it. You can see the modern successor of the wagon peeking out from behind the […]

Cruceiros are a common enough sight on the Camino. They were usually set up as boundary markers or to mark a crossroads. They are sometimes found in churchyards or in towns, where they mark places where itinerant judges would hold court on appointed days to dispense the King’s justice. This particular one is unusual in that it depicts the Pietà, […]