Category: Liminal Space

Day three of Sahagún Week! Sahagún is a city of ruins. Here I stand posing with a statue of a traditional pilgrim’s staff in front of what was once el Monasterio Real de San Benito. In 1820, the Spanish government dissolved the monasteries. The monks were turned out into the street. Moveable goods were plundered. Land and buildings were seized and […]

Just before the city of Sahagún, the Camino takes a little detour to the Ermita de la Virgen del Puente. This is said to mark the halfway point of the Camino Francés in Spain, midway between Roncesvalles and Santiago de Compostela. There’s a monument nearby stating this, and if it’s not exactly correct, it’s pretty close. I like to think that this […]

At the end of Villovieco, we cross this bridge over the Río Ucieza. If you look carefully, you may see the ubiquitous yellow arrow at the bridge entrance. We will take a hard right after the bridge and continue to walk along the river for some time. Date: 15 April 2013Place: leaving Villovieco (Province of Palencia, Castilla y León, Spain)Today […]

This is the keyhole of the main door of the Iglesia de San Martín de Tours in Frómista. I love these little details, which you will find all over the church building. There’s just something about an ancient lock in an ancient door. Date: 15 April 2013Place: Frómista (Province of Palencia, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: Itero de la Vega […]

I took more than twenty photos of the exterior of the Romanesque masterpiece of the Iglesia de San Martín de Tours. It is full of details, with different carvings on nearly every detail of the architecture, nothing repeated. I will restrict myself to posting just a couple. This window is, I believe, in one of the side apses. Date: 15 […]

After Boadilla del Camino, the Camino follows part of the Canal de Castilla, a 207 km long commercial waterway constructed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This part of the walk was quite pleasant; it was not yet hot, and a cool breeze breeze blew through the trees that lined the canal. The photo is of one of the […]

Boadilla del Camino isn’t the prettiest town – indeed, my notes for 2016 indicate that we walked right through it – but in 2013, Eamon and I were determined to grab a quick second breakfast here. So we wandered about a bit before stumbling on this place. Inside, we ran into Mia from Ireland, who we had last seen in […]

The Camino weirdly sidesteps the village of Itero del Castillo, as the bridge across the Río Pisuerga (the eponymous Puente de Itero del Castillo) lies perhaps a kilometer to the south. Although it’s a highway bridge, with a roadbed of 20th century asphalt, the bridge itself is much older. The original 11th/12th century bridge was rebuilt in the 16th century, […]

This small Gothic window may be found in the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Manzano. The church dates to the early 13th century, with extensive renovations up through the 18th century. I rather suspect that this window is from the older construction. There has been a church on this site since at least the 10th century, and for centuries this was an […]

One last photo of San Antón. This is one of my favourite Camino photos. In fact, it’s the header for my other blog. Even as I took the photo, I remember thinking of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, descending upon Christ at His baptism. Or of the dove that perched on Saint Gregory the Great when […]