Warning - Food Porn in Burgos

The city of Burgos is famed for its regional gastronomy and we decided to do an unpilgrim thing and splash out on a proper Burgos meal in a proper Burgos restaurant.

We chose lunch at 100+ year old Casa Ojeda, on the second floor of a long thin space overlooking pretty Plaza de Calvo Sotelo, with multi-paned windows covered in carved wooden lattices and overhead beams. We knew what the locale is known for and what the restaurant is known for so we went there.

All washed down with a Castillian rose, followed by coffee and delicate lacy biscuits.

very light and delicious black pudding with roasted red peppers

Two fois gras in raspberry sauce with preserved local cherries

Roast duck so delicate it melted off the bone

Warm partridge, marinated to retain moisture and flavour

the 'house cake' - phillo pastry halved
and filled with a thick sweet cream
and a caramelized top
Martin's fingers are for scale!

white chocolate orb that, when warm dark chocolate
was poured over it, melted open to reveal
ice cream and dried fruits

Full Moon Rising

Climate Change

From 30+ degrees, we crossed the Sierra de Atapuerca at 5 degrees with a wind chill bringing it close to freezing. That's a bit sudden, but we did learn from our hosts last night (in remote tiny Olmos) that this area is always windy and always much cooler than anywhere else in Spain. so out came the long sleeves and ear covers for the first time. Our fingers were frozen by the time we dropped into the valley below, and we slowly thawed out on the walk into Burgos.

stones forming a labyrinth...

at the top of the hill

just before we dropped down into the valley,
the city of Burgos in the distance,
the view impeded by a giant sign telling us
how great the view is

Burgos is a jewel in Spain's crown. A Roman city, although the Visigoths and Muslims didn't think much of it. In the 9th century it returned to favour by the Christians, who initiated the building of Gothic splendours. Birthplace of famous warlord El Cid. Also seat of Francisco Franco's fascist government during the Spanish Civil War in teh 1930s. Burgos has seen its share of drama.

It is now a city known for its food, architecture and art, home to one of the greatest cathedrals in the world and it is where we can enjoy a rest day!

statue of El Cid, referred to as "The Bat" due to its extravagant bronze cape

Your Ancestor Was A Cannibal

Don’t freak out too much. My ancestor was a cannibal too. In fact, anyone whose ancestors can be traced back to some part of Europe shares this shocking fact.

The oldest human remains in the whole of Europe have been found in Atapuerca, just a couple of kilometres off the Camino de Santaigo. They were not Homo Sapiens, and not even Neanderthals, but Homo Antecessors, who are currently thought to be the common ancestor to both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. Now that we know Neanderthals were not part of the progression we Homo Sapiens took, but rather our “cousins”, who we most probably killed off, nothing comes as a surprise.

Except finding out our ancestors were cannibals.

The remains in this region were discovered when a train line was being put in towards a mining area, in the 1960s. Since then, human fossils have been found that date back from 127,000 years ago to – wait for it – over 1,200,000 years ago! These are still being found – at this point the vast number total more than 90% of every single pre-Neanderthal fossil found anywhere in Europe.

In 2000, UNESCO declared this a World Heritage site of great importance. Beyond the actual fossils, an impressive amount of information has been gleaned or, literally, unearthed, as to how Home Antecessors lived, how their communities developed and what they ate (including other homonids!). The active archaeological site itself is closed to visitors, although there is an information site in town, which was closed, being Monday (???). 

in Atapuerca town

Much better to wait until Burgos and check out the Museum of Human Evolution.

Which we did, spending about 3 hours there. It is a very good museum, taking not just what has been found at Atapuerca, but putting it into the context of humanity. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we Going? The three key questions we ask of ourselves, philosophically at first but now also scientifically, due to the work first published by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. That work of reasoning has pervaded all social and natural sciences as disparate as law, economics and medicine.

Which makes it all the more interesting to contemplate as we are on the Camino walk, which for centuries has been about faith in the mysteries of the world, primarily Christian faith, so many of which have now been answered by science. Religion has to reckon with Science, and this is hard for some people to deal with. It’s either a rejection of belief in something that can’t be proven and yet which demands blind faith, or it’s a rejection of the new knowledge that the world has given into the hands of scientists of researchers.

The museum put this well:

The best evidence for the theory of evolution can be found in the existence in species which ar very different in form and habitat but which share many basic traits in terms of their anatomy, physiology, embryonic development, metabolism and chemical structure.

The fact that all the different organisms on the planet , including human beings, share the same genetic code proves beyond a doubt that we are all descended from an ancient life form, the common ancestor of all species.

It is amazing to think that our evolution began so many million years ago and, through a more or less random set of circumstances, allowed us humans to not only exist today but flourish, and continue the journey of change. So many other species were wiped out, leaving only fossils to puzzle over.

But what makes us different than any other animal is: 1) we can make fire and cook our food, 2) we bury our dead, 3) we make art for art’s sake, and 4) we have the concept of the future (tomorrow, next week, next year – not other creature has that capacity)

Now wonder man has wondered what the purpose of life is when we contain these things that are unique in the world. Our language became symbolic, with rites and rituals, and the development of religion has been an outcome developed to the highest form of thought and practice. I shudder to think what human beings would have done to one another without the fear of hell to deal with after death, but that did not stop enough bad things done in the name of religion either.

I am a follower of science, but when I sit in a cathedral, listening to complex and accomplished music, looking at art so exquisite and well-crafted that it took decades to produce and that produces in me a kind of ache of joy at its beauty, listening to stories told in poetry that has inspired people for centuries, it really doesn’t matter whether they were in the service of religion or commerce. That fact they are here at all is incredible and wonderful, a mystery of the human spirit and capacity.

outside the museum in Burgos
skull as kiddie climbing toy

Operator, Information, Get me Jesus on the Line

That song (performed by Manhattan Transfer) was in mind mind when I saw this confessional that has been turned into a phone booth.

Now go listen to the song...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWEiQEdQo2A

33.3%

Week two and we completed 147 km, which means 288 km for the two weeks of Camino walking. That means we are about one third of the way along by distance if not quite by time.

celebrating one third of the Camino
in our matching running group tees

San Juan de Ortega - the person and the place

San Juan de Ortega was a disciple of the great Santo Domingo written about earlier, who also devoted his life to serve the Santiago pilgrims. He was particularly good at building things, and he proved this with bridges, hospitals, churches and hostels all over the region. This included an Augustinian monastery in one of the most isolated and dangerous parts of the path for the medieval pilgrim, full of wild animals and thieves. It was built in 1150 and remains in good condition.

Born Juan Velazquez, the future San Juan completed his own pilgrimage to the Holy Land after Santo Domingo died. On his way back home, he was shipwrecked and prayed to San Nicolas de Bari to save him. What that particular saint? Juan had a relic of San Nicolas with him so perhaps felt a bit of mortal remain in his possession might be persuasive of his devotion. He also made the promise to devote his life to helping pilgrims. Whatever it was, it did the trick, and the Camino is all the better for his escape from a watery grave.  He chose this area of the Way because it was so difficult for pilgrims and immediately set about building a good road between Villafranca to Burgos and building the aforementioned hospice. He also took the name Ortega, which means thistle, although his name is now loosely translated as Saint John of the Nettles.

It could have been Saint John of the Bees, because at one point his tomb was opened and out flew a swarm of white bees and a pleasing scent. This was interpreted to be the souls of unborn children San Juan was keeping safe until they could be interred into the wombs of the worthy and faithful. Many other miracles have been attributed to him, including several related to ill or distressed pilgrims. My right foot is not nearly enough to pray to him on its behalf, but I did hope other limping and suffering pilgrims might find their own miracle cure here.

He built a square and squat chapel adjacent to the monastery and dedicated it to his saviour San Nicolas de Bari, and it’s a quiet and lovely place. Some of it is original to the 12^th century, and it is tempting and even likely to think it may have been touched with his own hands and tools. We are a few days late, but on the equinox days of each year, the light of the setting sun hits the Virgin Mary. Amazingly this was forgotten for centuries and only rediscovered in 1974, when the modern day pilgrimage was only just returning!

He may be gone, but he is not forgotten as his building prowess has since cast him as the patron saint of all surveyors and technical architects.

Cave Men and Women

Several of these hills are home to caves that have housed people for centuries, millennia even. The red or beige earth looks too fragile and yet is resilient enough for deeply dug shelters. Most of these are uninhabited now, but there are signs here and there of modern cave dwellers who have installed windows and doors. Presumably if they want a library or have another mouth to feed, renovations require merely a shovel.

Swallows and Storks

On several of the taller edifices in this eastern part of Gallicia y Leon we have seen huge stork nests, so wide and messy it’s hard to imagine they remain through the winter winds and rains, but remain they do. Storks mate for life, and every spring they return from Africa to have their children, leaving again in August for the long holiday south. The nests are empty now, being September, but it’s nice to look up at a church spire, or a long-ago brick chimney from a ceramic factory and imagine them  being home next spring.

The spires of churches host other birds now, especially in the early evenings when the cooling air brings out the flies and other insects. A sort of swallow-like bird will dart and soar like a speed demon in the cockpit of a supersonic jet around all the Gothic stone carvings and Romanesque prominences, sliding along walls and zipping through church bells. There will be several of them, all flying at the same time in different directions, barely passing each other and yet never hitting anything. They nest in mud packs clinging to the outside join of a wall and roof overhang, invisible by day as they siesta and wait for the evening. On can almost hear music as they flit with such energy and apparent joy.

New Region

Goodbye Rioja and Hello Castilla y Leon

Looking like a giant lit cigarette on the flat landscape,
the map of the region ahead

We are leaving the smallest province of the trek and entering the largest region, containing three provinces. For centuries Castilla and Navarre (and Aragon, a province we do not enter this trip) all fought for productive and wealthy Rioja, until it at last became autonomous.

Those centuries of regional battles are evident even today, as Castilla and Leon have formed a truce as well as a single region, despite keeping both names.

It is a huge region with a small population, and a primarily flat or slightly rolling landscape, the Saskatchewan of Spain if you will. The land is not great for anything but grain growing, wheat on the best land, and oats or barley on the poorer soils. We will be spending a lot of time getting to know this region!

Change of a Day

Have you ever had a bad day and then received the gift of good things over the next few days?

Funnily enough, everyone we talked too had a bad day the same day too. We all hoped to get over it, whether it be caused by pain, heat or any other issue.

Our next day, to Villafranca de Montes de Oca, was just as hot and my right foot hurt just as much, but it was a short day (I must remember that at home: 15 km is a short day!) and our accommodation was incredible. It looked like a parador, but was a grand house decorated in gloriously ostentatious and eccentric Spanish style. The long, wide corridors held armchairs with 6 foot high backs, heavily carved dark wood furniture, gothic tapestries, paintings in the El Greco style, colourful plastic floral displays in huge urns, and big white candles in glass vases.

It is an old Hospice of Saint Anthony the Abbot that has been restored, with an albergue added by the new owner. He had walked the Camino himself at some point, and built the albergue, attached to the grander hotel, as a way of paying back.

There was a formal dining room for dinner and a breakfast room decorated in black and white so lavishly it had the feel of being in a circus tent. The food was good, there was a garden with a bar/pub that served excellent sangria, and a resident dog and cat, both of whom ignored the guests. Our thick walled, charming room looked over the church and the hills of the valley across the road. 

In the evening a small group of stout elderly people arrived with wooden batons which were set up for a game I’d never seen before, with a large, wooden, self-handled ball thrown through 9 of these skittle-like posts to try to topple the single one at the other end of the plaza.

Our next day was grey, with a thick misty cloud hanging over the hills and a stiff, cool wind blowing. Glorious! The cat actually came up to me and let me scritch it, while purring. It was a steep climb up, then down, then up again, but through a forest of pine and scrubby oak, will tall grasses and ferns and heather. Little purply flowers with no stems lined our path. We think they might be a type of autumn crocus, but the flowers opened right from the ground, as if dropped there from the trees. 

Clumps of mistletoe in the trees look like circular birds’ nests. It’s a pretty plant, but parasitic as it feeds off its host tree before eventually killing it, and thereby killing itself. It’s hard to imagine evolution would allow this sort of thing to happen for very long.

The alto opened out, and the clouds started to part, exposing blue skies, but the air remained cool and the breeze was refreshing. It was easy to accomplish today’s mileage goal.

Camino Philosophy

Courtesy of a highly stung Alaskan raconteur (and quote originator Martin Buber:

All real living is meeting 

Tough Slog

Hoo boy. Today was the toughest day to get through, for some reason. For a few reasons maybe.

It was a beautiful sunrise, and cooler than it has been at the same time in this unseasonably warm month for this region. But the mileage has taken a toll on my feet. On my right foot at least – thankfully my left foot is doing well. Although the blister on the outside of my big toe and the blister on the outside of my little toe have both been seen to and wrapped with all the care and medical accoutrements we have, the pressure exerted on the extra padding on both sides of my boot meant a lot of pain walking today.

Our usual walking day is 6 hours or so, depending on the terrain, plus maybe three 15 minute breaks here or there for rest, foot and a stretch. When it is flat, easy walking we walk our city-quick pace, between 4 and 5 km an hour. My darling husband has taken the day pack load from me, as I have found that my scoliosis starts to cry out at about the 18km mark, at the point where my curve makes a deep concavity on my right side. I guess the impact of walking along with weight on the back is just too much, along with gravity and my age, to withstand the entire walking day, which is usually about 22 to 25 km. Especially if there is a lot of climbing or descending. So I only have to walk with my poles, which is so easy, but even then, at about 18km, my side is starting to request that we end soon, and I have to take frequent quick stretch breaks.

The other thing that happened today was I ate a small biscuit at about 8 km in, with my coffee. I should have remembered my body doesn’t much like the combination of caffeine, carbohydrates and exercise, and I have been so good about having just hot water with my breakfast every morning, and then making our first rest stop an excuse to have a fresh café con leche. But today’s coffee included a little tiny biscuit and I wolfed it down without thinking. So 2km along the next bit of walking I got dizzy and sweaty, so had to rest longer than usual and that cut into the pattern.

The walking was fairly easy today, not too hilly, past fields of cut hay, and not yet cut sunflowers. But a lot of it was trudging alongside the main motorway. There was no shade and by 11am or so the temperature was closing in on 30 degrees Celcius, as it has done for the best part of the past week. It’s normally wet in this part of the Camino by this time of September and considerably cooler, but we are experiencing a real stretch of hot dry days. Of course this is much, much nicer than cold and wet, and knowing we have ample water with us and a cold shower at the end of our day makes it more bearable. I am really extremely grateful to have heat and dry rather than wet and cold. But today it seemed to be a painful, hot, boring slog and I was almost deliriously happy to stop.

This was our third of six days of walking before our next rest day, but tomorrow is slightly shorter so I may wear my other shoes to see if that helps. It is all part of the Camino experience. And next time, I will give Martin my coffee biscuit!

Camino Questions

There are many questions asked of pilgrims in our guide books, such as why we are doing the Camino, and what is our purpose to be gained. Many many more, and thoughtful questions too. But, as one pilgrim had it, “Changes to one’s life come on the return journey home”

No one we have met is doing it for a religious purpose. Half if not more of the people we meet are doing it just for the tourism aspect. The others are wrestling with some sort of life crisis - a loss, a change, a transition. But there are always the tacit query in each others' eyes, So why are you doing the Camino? What question is it going to answer? What are you going to do differently when you are done? What are you seeking? All along the way we have been thinking of these questions and quietly contemplating, “What is our Camino Question?”  

On today’s lovely walk through fields of hay and grapevines, we actually had aha moments, and a little light bulb went up for each of us, helped by the other one.

For Martin it is a question of home. Where is home? And where is home to him? Not where does he live, or where was he born or even where his ancestors are from, but where is that place that he feels a true, down deep sense of comfort and familiarity that he could say is ‘home’. Physically he knows, and intellectually he knows, but emotionally, that place is still not identified as such. There are still a few emotional barriers.

For me, that is easy. When I got off the plane at the age of 14 in London, England, I was completely at ease despite it being my first time there. I felt at home and I knew I would live there someday, although it took another 10 years for that to happen. So England is my ancient homeland. But my true home, my current home, and the place I now feel is familiar and comfortable is the rugged cost of B.C.’s northern islands. I live in neither, but they call ‘home’ to my heart – my ancient home and my current home.

So my question took longer to determine but I think Martin may have helped me find it this same day, the first day of autumn, as we approach 250km thus far on our Camino.

“What is next?” Not externally, but more on the inside. A sort of “what will be my legacy?” By now I have defined my shape and coloured in the lines. Doing everything I could wherever I could and being open to everything along the way. Then I added some shadows, reconnecting with people and places of my past where there is still kindred connection, and renegotiating my role in my family, which meant acknowledging the parts of my character that needed adjusting to earn the relationships I wanted. Acknowledging my changing body. Now what? What can I do that may continue beyond me, as I do not have children or artistic work to leave behind. Not to be remembered particularly, but to leave something positive for someone to come.

Now we just have another 650 km to figure out how to answer our Camino questions!

Orphaned Church Tower

The magnificent Cathedral in the small town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada (although technically it is a city as it has a cathedral, despite its less than 7000 population) has a baroque tower that holds several bells and steps for those willing to pay 1 euro. What makes this tower quite unique is the fact that it sits separate and detached from the cathedral; in fact, across the street.

The view of the countryside is wonderful and the air is cool and sweet on this hot day. But if you go, make sure you time it well. Just as we got to the top and I saw all the bells I joked to myself "I hope the bells don't ring while we are up here), it turned 7:30 and two of the bells did ring, extremely loudly.

At least it wasn't the hour. Nor the call to mass!

A Man Above Equals

Our longest, hottest day meant not seeing the inside of Najera’s Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real, with the reportedly exquisite tomb of poor Dona Blanca, a young woman set up to marry two men before marrying the third (at 16) and then dying in childbirth five years later. I’m not sure having a beautiful tomb is just recompense, but at least she and her lot are thought of and prayed for 900 years later. The other element I was sorry not to see were the lacy carved stone of the cloisters. But We did get to see the immense red wall of Rioja clay behind the town, which offered a natural fortification so that manmade attention could be focused on the east-west road through town that is the Camino.

Not quite as long and not quite as hot was the day to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, and I was damned well – sorry Saint James – darned well going to get into that cathedral and pay my respects to the man who made it, the town and parts of this Camino possible, way back in the 12^th century.

Domingo was born a little further north, in a village that has demolished his house and reputedly dispensed with his baptismal font from the church, which we will try to verify as we pass through tomorrow. 

He was humble and devout but when his ambition to become a monk was thwarted due to illiteracy, he turned it around to become one of the most important influences of the Camino. He dedicated his life to making life easier and safer for pilgrims by building a bridge so they did not have to walked alongside the river for miles and miles until a ford would be made. (Incidentally this is the river Oja, in Spanish "Rio Oja", which is how the region (and wine) Rioja got its name). He cut down 37 km of forest to make a safe road. He built a hospice for pilgrims (now a 5 star Parador) and then a church, where he is now buried. In so doing, a town grew up, a town now carrying his name and which celebrates his day in May even now, despite having died in 1109. What a legacy for an illiterate man.

the right side is the remaining piece
of the 12th century church

both of these are St. Domingo

crafted only 100 years apart

These two column top carvings crack me up.
They depict the parable of the wise and foolish virgins:
the wise virgins hold their candle upright and are happy,
while the foolish virgins hold theirs upside down and
look most puzzled as to why the lights go out

This place carries another story, one that has been attributed to other places, such as Toulouse in France, but remains connected to this place. The story goes that in the 12^th century, a pilgrim family (a couple with a son) came to stay in Santo Domingo de la Calzada on their way to Santiago. The inn’s daughter took a shine to the travelling boy pilgrim, who resisted her entreaties. He was on a pilgrimage with his parents after all! Angry with this rebuff, the girl secretly put a piece of silverwork from the cathedral in the boy’s bags and alerted the authorities the next day, who found the silver and sentenced the boy to hang. Which he did. The parents finished their pilgrimage and came back here on their way home, heartbroken at the loss of their son. How surprised where they to find their son still hanging but very much alive! They ran to the city official who was about to sit down to his dinner of roast chicken. When told their son was still alive, the city official snorted and replied that the boy was as alive as the cooked chicken he was about to eat. Lo and behold, the chicken on his plate rose up and came alive, feathers and all. Surprised at the miracle they all ran back to the gibbet and cut the boy down, now convinced of his innocence. Which is why there are live chickens in the cathedral (apparently descendants of the originals) to this day, and the city’s soccer team has a chicken for a mascot.

The story does not relate what happened to the inn keeper’s daughter but I hope she got her comeuppance.

painting of the moment the boy is cut down alive....

...which is on the 15th century chicken coop
(note piece of original gibbet on wall above)

it used to be that if a pilgrim gave the chickens crumbs
and they ate then the pilgrim will have a safe journey

yes, there really are a cock and hen in there
although they are behind soundproof glass
as they used to cause too much noise
during mass

Santo Domingo's expression looks to me
like his is thinking "Really? I devote
my entire life to making pilgrims'
ways easier and safer and now every picture of me
has to include chickens?"

Florence Nightingale Walks the Camino

Even if you are just walking the Camino to enjoy the hike, you get called a pilgrim. In this way, everyone, no matter how ignoble or utilitarian their motivation, is transformed by the Camino experience. 

As you walk along, the regular greeting Buen Camino is exchanged at least 10 times a day, often to the same people as you pass each other and then get passed. Although people walk at different speeds, you get to see some of the same faces each day. Some you get to know over a beer and some you just recognize from their silhouette or their attire. 

Seeing pilgrims up ahead is good thing. It’s a reminder that you are not lost and that you are never alone in case a helping hand or a supportive word is needed. You also get to recognize a lot of backs and a lot of backpacks. And a lot of limps.

 Seeing people sitting at the side of the trail gazing at their bare feet brings enquiries of health (Que Tal) and offers of help. Everyone is desperate to reduce the weight of their bag by using up medical supplies, not on ourselves but on others. We all are potential Florence Nightingales dispensing relief to those suffering from blisters, pain, thirst, sunburn and exhaustion.

Rioja-land

Good Rioja wine country - but Spain, why do you
serve your red wine chilled???

Past Pilgrim

Lovely, modern day carving of modern day standing on spot where centuries of pilgrims have walked, their foot marks invisible but their path still clear

Goosed!

In its journey through the city of Logrono, the Way passes the Church of Santiago, on the spot where St. James was said to have preached in the first century AD. It’s a lovely place, and near a good fountain for filling water bottles for the journey, 

but in the plaza to one side was a life sized boards game inlaid in the  stone, the game of Goose. In fact the Goose game was originally in place here even before the church was built in the 9^th century, although the current church was built in the 15^th.

So what is this game in such an important location? It is an ancient board game in which players roll dice to move in a spiral, past 63 spaces with different pictures on them, including several with a goose. Depending on which square you land on, you go forward or backward or miss a space or go back to the beginning, not unlike other board games throughout history.

However, this game, with its wells and labyrinths, also includes pictures that represent different stages of the Camino: Burgos, Sahagún, León, Ponferrada, Melide… among others.

The game starts in Logroño and ends in the tomb of the apostle Santiago, each square depicting the many stops of the French Way we are travelling. The anonymous bridges of the original Game are illustrated here as the real bridges we cross in Puente la Reina in Navarra and in Puente Órbigo in the province of Leon. The labyrinth, the square that always made us lose our turn, is here represented by Las Medulas of Leon.

This incarnation of the game was installed in 1991, and huge dice were added for effect (and to sit on), but this replaced an earlier one and so on. Despite the various theories of the origin of the game, the one that seems to sticks is that it was created by the Templars in the 12th century, using the Way of Saint James as a source of inspiration. It is said that in the board of the game, full of esoteric motifs, the Templars concealed their knowledge behind complex and mysterious codes. It is believed that this ‘board’ was a guide to the pilgrimage route for those still not initiated in the order. So the game could be seen as a metaphor for those pilgrims to overcome obstacles of the Way to be able to reach their goal.

Festival Time!

A shorter walk today, as we reach our next rest stop, and a rest day tomorrow, wading through buoyant celebrations. Lorgrono is celebrating the weeklong festival of San Mateo, which seems to have merged with a general celebration of La Rioja wine and all that comes with it. The city is the capital of the small but prosperous Rioja province and we found it in full swing.  

Parades of brass bands, complete with Sousaphones and drums, take over the streets, followed by dancing children and their parents. In all the main squares are degustation tables, where, for 2 euros, one receives a paper token, 

which is immediately handed back to someone else in exchange for a small plate of food. At one station it might be tuna and roasted red peppers in baguette, at another it might be minced pork with a hunk of bread, or it might be a slice of bread heaped with slices of roast duck and apple sauce. Every small dish seemed to include meat and bread, but also wine. You might be handed a small bottle of wine, or have a choice of a beaker of wine or of water.

There were areas of the city set up for bands or for children’s crafts and activities or for wine tasting. Individual performers set up in smaller squares, helium balloons in dozens of characters were sold, and giant puppets were set up, presumably meant to depict either historical characters or local leaders. And then another band would come along. This goes on all day and late into the night, every day for a week. It made our accommodation cost more than expected, but it added a lot of fun to be part of. And a lot of wine was enjoyed!

Gothic Romance

We were very excited about our rest stop in Viana as it supposedly is in an old palace. It turns out to be a very dull version of corporate hotel inside a square brick box of a building. But our window looks out onto the ruins of the Church of San Pedro. A pure gothic structure built in the 13^th century it survived all sorts of shenanigans until it was used as a barracks for the Carlist Wars and 10 years later it collapsed. Thanks a lot guys. What the heck were you doing in your bedrooms back then?

It is still possible to see some of the painting in one section of walls and arches that survives, but the rest is just a ruin that only a romantic or an architecture student of Gothic construction can love. The space behind it, which would have been the graveyard, presents a stunning view down and over the valley below.

Thankfully I am a bit of a romantic so enjoyed lingering through the toppled stonework, especially as the large church in town was closed.  This happens quite a bit. Churches might only be open a little before mass, and that rarely fits in with our timing. But I did get a good look at its entrance, which is very well-developed cut stone in amazing condition given its age of 450-odd years old. All sorts of stories are clearly still visible in great detail, mixing sacred images (like the Passion and Redemption) with secular ones (like the Labours of Hercules and Renaissance grotesques).  I liked the addition of God above in the Dome, as if he is blessing the entire motley collection of carvings, and approving the skill it took the human hands that did them.

By about 6pm we were resting and reading and could hear the wind starting to bluster. Looking outside we saw the collection of flags strung across the street were almost horizontal in the wine, and a big dark cloud was enveloping the city. A half hour later there were rumbles and flashes of light, and the air had become quite cold. The flashes of lightening soon became long streaks and the rumbles of thunder crashed loudly as the rain came in a flood of cold darts on an angle determined by the wind.

We enjoyed the spectacle immensely and watched the Gothic ruins across the street light up and echo as each resounding flash and crash came and went, with rain soaking through the stone. Thank goodness we are not walking in that!