Day 9: Nájera to Granon

Early start again today, and it didn't rain, contrary to the forecast last night - hooray! It was great getting moving again after a day off
There's snow on them thar hills...
Highlights for me today included the stories of the town and the cathedral at Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The town was built in the 11th century by Domingo Garcia specifically to look after pilgrims. He cleared forests, built bridges, a hospital and church - and is now apparently the patron saint of (Spanish) civil engineers!
And re the Iglesia Catedral - a story from the 14th century: an innkeeper's daughter fell in love with a pilgrim, but the pilgrim didn't love her in return. The girl was not pleased, and falsely accused the pilgim of theft. The pilgrim was found guilty and hung from the gallows. A long time later, the pilgrim was reportedly found miraculously alive, but still hanging from the gallows. The Mayor refused to believe the reports, insisting that the pilgrim was no more alive than the two roast chickens he was about to eat. And voila - another miracle: the roast chickens came back to life. In celebration, ever since then there have been two live chickens kept in the cathedral...
(Yep, there are definitely two chickens in there)

More gold...
Lots of statues and images
Saint Roque made an appearance (save us from the plague): I haven't come across him before except in the lyrics to one of my favourite songs: Psalmus Ode by Vangelis. Turn the volume up LOUD if you want to listen to it..
Other displays of wealth...
I'm now settled in Granon at another donativo albergue which is part of a church; mattresses on the floor marae-style
Shared dinner, by a Michelin star Italian chef, with the rest of the pilgrims as sous-chefs...
Clean up by a team of 30...
Much sleep unlikely, as the 1 May festivities apparently last until about 4:00 am, with the sound stage right outside the church

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Border controls

Image
It's not quite so much fun traveling to the other side of the world without my favorite traveling partner, Sue. Apart from everything else, she probably would have solved my navigation problems at the airport in Paris. I got through arrivals security ok using the new automated passport controls. Then missed a turn and went through departures security (oops), and then got stuck - the automated passport machines refused my re-entry. So I had to go in another long queue to go through the manual border control. All's well that ends well, so I had a day wandering the Paris streets... ... and a lot of waiting around, before boarding the overnight train to Bayonne, with just a short train ride in the morning to St Jean Pied-de-Port
Read more

The start of the way

Not long now before I put my pilgrim hat on and start walking. Overweight and under-trained, which is a bit of a worry as I shortly start an 800km walk along the Camino Frances from St Jean-Pied-de-Port in the south of France, over the Pyrenees, and across Spain to Santiago de Compostela.  If all goes well, I'll continue on to the end of the earth (a place called Finisterre, where the Romans thought the world ended) on the west coast of Spain - all up close to 900km Somewhat daunted by the prospect, not just by walking 25-30km day after day after day in the Spanish heat, but by the extended time away from family My flight leaves Wellington next Monday, 20 April
Read more

Day 7: Logroño to Nájera

Image
I had an early start today; some kind person got up and started packing at 4:45 am, and thought the rest of us would like to join him. I lay awake for long enough to know that I wasn't going back to sleep, so decided to pack up my bed and walk I had planned to take a short or maybe even a zero day, but the early start in the rain persuaded me to just keep moving (it was quite cold). A bit of manual navigation required in the dark added to the fun, since a pedestrian bridge on The Way was closed I quite like the stylised camino shell used in this region First village,  Navarrete: Just before my morning coffee and tortilla de patata, I had my gold fix for the day at the Iglesia de Santa María de la Asunción in Navarrete. I'm in three minds about this one: is it gaudy or godly or just goldy? [Sorry, not sure if that needs to be rotated on your screen. The video looks impressive, but I can't work out how to embed it...
Read more