Howdee Gaudi

Jane: well, sorry to be teaching grandmother to suck eggs as obviously you all know that Antoni Gaudi from Catalan was the father of Catalan modernism and responsible for many architectural masterpieces in Spain, promoting artisanal crafts and skills including ceramics, carpentary, stonemasonary and ironwork to produce his unique style of architecture.  Here´s a bit of it.

 This was Gaudi´s Casa de Botines in Leon.

 This is Gaudi´s bishops´palace in Astorga.  You can see he liked a turret. In fact you could be forgiven for thinking we had leaped to Disney Land, Paris. It was fascinating inside, however.

These were the amazing vaults inside.  Every tile on the edges was hand crafted.

This is St James (who we are trailing to Santiago to see) in his "Moor-slayer" persona.

I don´t know about you and flying ducks across your living room wall, but clearly in 13th centuary the penchant was for flying bishops.

This is a 13th centuary figure of St James in a more benign mode (and as fresh as if this had been crafted yesterday).

There were an amazing number of very ancient, but very exquisite figures of the Virgin Mary.  She was often missing her crown and the fruit (??) she was holding in her right hand.  She would always be dressed in the rich raimant of the period and decorated in gold leaf.  The figure below is a particularly nice example from the medieval period.

We also visited the cathedral and its museum and we were amazed at the work that went into embroidering the church vestments -- gold and metallic threads cannot have been easy to manipulate and the curly fleeces on the Lamb of God must have taken weeks to complete and nobody would have seen this detail.

Below is me hanging onto a pilgrim´s staff to avoid being blown into the Leon Hills (which we have to face tomorrow).

Astorga is both a popular pilgrim town, with many pilgrims passing through all day, but also other tourists are here - we guess they are visiting the chocolate museum and purchasing bars of chocolate the size of gold ingots on display in the numerous sweet shops on every street.

Charlotte. This is me at the entrance to a very peaceful park that has wonderful views of the mountains in the distance, we head off tomorrow towards them. I am very hopeful my leg will be OK, we have rested, I am taking massive anti-inflamatory tablets, icing my shin, rubbing in embrocation and strapping it. ( we watched very helpful you tube films to instruct on appropriate strapping) We have also been walking around Astorga and going up and down many steps. My leg is sore but 90% better so as long as we rest frequently and take each day as it comes we will get to Santiago in about 12 days!!!!

We are getting my backpack portered to each albergue for the next few days, so we have had to buy a larger pack for Jane to carry as I need a small pharmacy to see to my needs!!!

Wish us luck, hasta luega. Love to all of you from C & J.

Parador - Paradise

Jane: well we leave here tomorrow and we shall go by bus to a place called Astorga.  From there we shall start walking again on Thursday morning.  This will have given Charlotte´s shin five days free of serious walking and hopefully she will be be able to cope with the mountains of Galicia (aaaghh!).

We have really enjoyed our brief stay here-- well, who wouldn´t?! We have of course attempted to retain a serious and contemplatative demeanour, but it´s hard when you have a glass of wine in your hand and have to nibble at another bowl of olives.

On a practical level we have got our washing done, caught up on BBC world news (anybody want to know the weather in Taiwan?), caught up on sleep, bathed until we look like prunes and re-stocked our wash bags with tiny upmarket shampoos etc. -- just what a pilgrim needs.  We are not the only pilgrims doing this.  We have met several others either just resting or injured and having an enforced rest -- I know they could have chosen the municipal albergue -- we blame Martin Sheen and the natural hedonism of human kind.

 This is the Parador de San Marco, formerly a monestary, school, gaol, stable, military headquarters and nearly demolished in the 19th centuary -- thankfully now a lovely hotel and museum.

A view from the internal cloisters, where the stud once operated.

 Our recuperative base where Charlotte´s natural piety shines around her!

 Yes, we can turn even a Parador into laundry  (another piece of top gear is the steatchy, peg-free washing lines).

 We met up with Bethany from Hawaii again at breakfast this morning -- lovely to see her. She is charging ahead as she has a tight deadline.

 The bar -- a sort of home-from-home.  (Henry did say he was paying!!!!)

The view from our little balcony. (Very private fortunately as our smalls have spent some time drying out here.)

We are now gearing up to get back on The Way -- actually we really can´t wait to get going again.

More news when we have some.  Love C&J xxx

Culture Vultures

Charlotte: Here we are in Spain, a Catholic country so we have of course been surrounded at times by ruins, ancient and old ecclesiastical buildings. So we thought we would take the opportunity to visit some as we passed through pueblos, towns and cities. We have spent hours walking around and then around and even around again admiring the architecture, stature, grandure, stonework, carvings and gargoyles - all from the outside as they are always flipping closed!!!! We have managed in total to get into four churches, two Cathedrals which are public museums and two proper churches in small towns, one of which was only open as a wedding party were about to arrive. Once we did manage to get in we had to grope about in the pitch dark to find the offertory candles to light and then use the meager flame to find the box for the donation. We went to a pilgrim mass at Granon where the lights were lit as the service began to reveal Spain´s gold reserves. Blingtastic. We have been told that the churches are all locked because of said bling, but it does seem strange on a pilgrim route. What is evident is the riches the Camino Way has brought to the church over the centuries as even the smallest hamlet has an enormous church and we mean enormous.

 This was an ancient facade on the outside of what was an enormous church which was of course closed. Take note of what happens to sinful people!

Part of the Roccoco section in the enourmous Burgos cathedral, I spent so long looking up, that the next day I was dizzy from either a trapped nerve or a surfiet of piety!

This was a ruin of a convent where in the past bread was left in special alcoves for passing pilgrims.

 Yippee, an open door.

This beautiful church dedicated to the Virgin of the Bridge, it was in the middle of nowhere, beautifully restored but locked.

Leon cathedral is an enormous Gothic edifice, renowned for its beautiful stained glass windows. Jane looked round this as I rested my leg. It involved the largest restoration of a Medieval cathedral anywhere in the world as its light and airy construction made it vulnerable to collapse.

This was an extremely pretty little Church just on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.  It looks from the picture as if we got inside. Don´t you believe it. Jane had to stick her camera through a hole in the door -


We have met a few Virgins along the way.  They are often enclosed in glass cases and quite hard to take a good picture of. This one was rather special one in Azofra and a small park had been constructed for pilgrims to rest awhile. Me and Jane  were actually having a bit of a laugh as the Christ child looked not unlike a ventriloquist´s dummy with enormous feet facing the wrong way. At this point an old chap approached speaking ten to the dozen in Spanish. He was very pleased we were taking such an interest and from what we could gather this Virgin is the patroness of La Rioja.Maybe that explains the sculptor´s idiosynchratic modelling!

What do you think?

On a less spititual note, we have been so impressed by the investment in every village, small town and, of course city, in state-of-the-art play equipment and exercise machines for children and youngsters. However, in the more than 250 miles we have travelled so far and at whatever time of day we pass by, we have yet to see a child in a park.  Actually we have yet to see a child outside of the city.  We suspect that the Pied Piper is not German but is in fact Spanish and alive well clacking his castenets -- maybe we´ll meet the kids in the Leon hills.

There are lots of children in the cities.  Coincidentally we tend to get to cities at weekends and every Saturday and Sunday little boys get dressed up in white military suits and little girls put on long white frocks and First Holy Communions take place. And is followed by the FHC party (bit like American Bar Mitzvah dos - or so it seems. The whole family is dressed up to the nines.

In terms of the Spanish language we are trying our best with our two phrase books.  There are certain phrases and words that one quickly masters, for example "dos cafe con leche por favor", "vino tinto para mi" (Charlotte), " un vaso di agua para me" (Jane).  However, there are two words/phrases we constantly are corrected on (must be a dialect thing).  Unfortunately they are extremely important words and need to be used everyday. We have yet to get them out of our mouths correctly.  They are: "cerveza" (Charlotte) and "zumo de naranja" (Jane).  We´ll keep practising.

 Charlotte arriving at Leon.

En route to Leon.

By for now.  xxxxx

Not an Ensalada Mixta

(To explain the title; every pilgrim menu has, either as a choice or a compulsory dish, a mixed salad.  It can be a bit repetitive.  Here it acts a s a metaphor for odds and sods.)

We have already shown you some pictures of funny things we have seen, but here we want to share a few interesting and/or strange things we have seen.

The other day we were happily walking through North West Spain when all of a sudden we were transported to The Shire. 

People told us these are used by the locals to store their wune.  However, as you can see there are a number of chimneys and TV ariels.  Anyway, how could the one little old lady who is the only resident in all these Spanish villages ever drink that amount of wine?!  So -- must be Hobbits -- or returning Pilgrims as apparently one´s feet become very broad and hobbit-like after walking the Camino.

Lots of people say how nice it must be walking with your sister.  I am not sure Charlotte entirely concurs with this sentiment as at every opportunity she makes a new friend.

As you all know we are walking through Spain. A hot country.  You think the weather is unseasonal in the UK but you are not walking here at 7.30 am.  yesterday morning as we set out we saw all around us drooping flowers and frost-rimed leaves. by mid-day we were slappoing on the suntan lotion.

And now a little update on how and where we are.  Have we mentioned the concept of the Tourigrino to you?  These are perigrinos who get all their kit transfered from place to place and dash past us with a bounce in their step carrying miniscule day packs.  Well -- we have sort of, temporarily become tourigrinos.  Yesterday Charlotte´s shinsplints ( they call it tendonitis here) became quite severe and she could barely hobble along.  As the Camino Way always provides, luck would have it that we had hobbled into the only place with a major railway station -- no brainer- we caught the train to Leon today so Charlotte can get three days without any walking and hopefully we can be back on the road on Tuesday.  Unfortunately we are having to stay in the Leon Parador (google it or watch Martin Sheen´s "The Way").  We are quite chilled (that´s the G&T) and philosophical (that´s the hot baths and huge fluffy towels) about this enforced interruption to our pilgrimage.  We amy even have to get Charlotte´s pack transported for a couple of days.  However, given the mega dosage in each tablet purchased in the farmacias here, Charlotte shouldn´t feel the sharp stick I shall be poking her with.

This was us a couple of days ago chilling out ( chilling being the operative word - barely have these fleeces off our backs).

Back soon.  Love to all. Keep commenting; we love to hear from you. xx

The Face of Spain

We have now walked through huge tracts of Spain.  We have been through three distinct provices: Navarre, Riocha and we are now part way through the largest, Castille y Leon.  The changes in scenery creep up on one (as we creep along I suppose).  We only appreciate the changes slowly, but when we think back about where we started and what we are seeing now we appreciate the considerable differences -- more to come I expect.

This was taken just part way up the Pyrenees, we still had an awful long way to go and that pretty swirling mist in the valleys below soon engulfed us!

Still in the foothills of the pyrenean mountains where we walked for a number of days.

A quirky skyline.

We have walked through some lovely woodland.  This was a Holm Oak wood and Henry in particular will be thrilled to learn that a goodly part of the Camino Way is made out of breedon gravel!

Even when not walking in the maountains the hills can be seen in the distance and are frequently snow-topped.

We are now arriving at the High Meseta - the inland plateau between Burgos and Leon.  As you can see it is largely flat -- a good thing and a not-so-good thing. (see below).

Charlotte applying Ibruprofen Gel to her shinsplints after the endlessly repetitive plodding along the flat terrain.

A cold early morning start by a canal on the meseta.

This path next to the road is called the Senda, or the Peregrinos Autopista.  It can be a bit of an unremitting plod, but as you can see it is made of Breedon Gravel! You can at least walk side by side, talk and be safe from traffic.

This was half way up the Alta del perdon (The Hill of Forgiveness) on one of our earlier sunny days (and before I bacame Wonder Woman and could carry that pack all day without a break!)

Here I am climbing up onto the High Meseta -- Charlotte fair galloped up and got this photo in (mind you, who has got shin splints!)

Hope this gives you a flavour of the different scenery.

Love to all and a BIG thank you to Lea for your comments -- they were lovely xxxxxx

Photos we forgot

We weren´t able to post photos of the fauna and flora yesterday so we are going to try now.  This computer system is very old and has already swallowed 2 euros for nothing so I might not be lucky.

You have to be very patient and phlegmatic if you are a cow living in the pyrenees with a huge bell round your neck.

This is a yellow wagtail and boy, was it yellow.

Poppies, obviously. But this doesn´t really capture the redness of these little cousins to the British variety.

Tamarisk trees.  These were the first we saw but since then we´ve seen a number of different shades of light to dark pink.

There were three nests on this Church tower and four storks.  The male returns to the nest each year and gets it in shape for his mate to arrive.  One mate had returned and we watched these enormous and slightly daft birds conduct their courtship dance -  which involves much fluffing our of neck ruff feathers and clacking of beaks.  You imagine him saying " look at that twig I brought back for the nest.  Bet his next door isn´t as big."

One of many little cats we have seen with her unusual blue eyes.

Success! next blog The face of Spain.