Walking the Camino de Santiago
Although we’ve used the designation for other, similar paths, Francine first named the descent into the village of El Acebo “the goat path”, and the name sort of stuck. We now use it as a general description of these sorts of rocky, treacherous downhill bits – but this was the original. And yes, it’s exactly as steep as it appears. […]
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After Manjarín the Camino follows a dirt and gravel path that parallels the highway, sometimes taking a much steeper route than the highway switchbacks. The going was only a little rough, but the view was pretty good. Of course, being up in the hills means that eventually you have to come down. Date: 22 April 2013Place: between Manjarín and El […]
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About thirty minutes past Cruz de Ferro, the Camino comes to the mostly ruined village of Manjarín, population 1. The only actual standing building here is this crazy-fantastic albergue, the Refugio de Manjarín, where you can get a cup of coffee or sleep in what is essentially a stable with no running water. I hear the evening pilgrim dinners are […]
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After Cruz de Ferro, the Camino traverses some scrubby ground with views of the surrounding hills and the mountains ahead. Off to the left, you can see a fire in the hills. Eventually, we saw two helicopters come to put it out. I suspect that as dry as this area gets, brush fires are common. I recall seeing a fire […]
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This last look back at Cruz de Ferro gives you somewhat of an idea of the scale of it. That mound containing all of the stones left by pilgrims, is reportedly cleaned out/reduced monthly. I’ve no idea where the stones end up. Date: 22 April 2013Place: between Foncebadón and Manjarín (Province of León, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: Rabanal del […]
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We’re back! Now that our 2022 Camino Primitivo is in the books, we return to our regularly scheduled look at our 2013 Camino Francés. When last we left, our dauntless pilgrims were were at Cruz de Ferro – the Iron Cross – one of the great moments for the pilgrim on this route. In today’s photo, we stand atop the […]
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We are all now finally back from our Camino. Those of you who have been following along know that – in addition to the physical and mental challenges – the Camino is a powerful tool for discernment. I’ll get back to what we were discerning later, but I was again reminded that walking the Camino is truly a time and […]
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This morning on our last day in Santiago de Compostela we walked through the Holy Doors in the Cathedral and said our good-byes. We checked out of our AirBnB at noon and caught a cab to Santiago Airport early to take our mandated pre-flight COVID tests. To make a long, very stressful, and panicky story short, Callie tested positive. Both […]
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Yesterday was the great feast of the Ascension. In Santiago, this is a three day celebration commencing on Ascension Thursday and running through the end of Saturday. We went to the noon Mass at the Cathedral. An amazing children’s choir sang the Mass parts in polyphony. The Archbishop himself presided, and in his homily he addressed the faithful in at […]
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Yesterday evening, I made a visit to the cathedral. It was all a little overwhelming for me, and I couldn’t stay long. The continuing restoration work carried out over the last four years has revealed much of the medieval and counter reformation beauty of the place which had been covered up by centuries of grime and ill-conceived re-decoration and repainting […]
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