Wildlife on the move

Hello, everyone. It's always fun to see an unexpected animal.

This fox was out for a stroll near the Mission S Francis De Espada historical park on the south side of San Antonio. I didn't know they come in that color variety. 

Villafranco del Bierzo to La Laguna del Castillo

Hello, everyone.  This is a second post for the day as I want to get caught up.

We left Villafranco around 0700 as usual. There was some pretty path along the way, though what we mostly remember about the day is the continuous climbing. Very little of that climbing was given back. It just went up, up, up. We had a bite of breakfast around 9:30 or 10. The path kept on. We passed Hotel Valcarce, that is named after the river we must have crossed about 7 times. Those folks have a bar, a restaurant,  a hotel, bus and truck parking...it reminded us of Complejo Leo on the Via de la Plata. But we had eaten, visited facilities, and we're generally good, so we didn't go in.

We started climbing for real at about Las Herrerias, which at one time was an iron processing town. We had a small sip there and headed out. We passedca cutoff for La Faba, but we didn't go there as we had discovered that neither of the lodgings there have wifi. Actually in the event I considered how the whole place was probably tucked insight to the canyon walls and wondered to DH if the town even had cell service. Much less internet. (Memories of driving through the Missouri hollows and losing active calls with every dip in the road stay with me.) We headed on. Using the paved road that was also the bike route. After many turns and twists, and many stops for breath, we arrived at La Laguna. This is a tiny village with only one place to stay. We were lucky and they found room for two more heads to lie down on pillows. (Which after almost 29 km of climbing all day, I was extremely grateful for.) 

We're pretty much at the top now, expecting ridge walking tomorrow before beginning the great downhill walking.

Trabadelo was very involved in wood.

Here you see one of several log piles that were seasoning alongside the road.

Las Herrerias boundary sign

Artistic shale roof work

View from the road, just before La Laguna

Hontanas to Carrion de las Condes

Hello, everyone.  I'm working on getting caught up on our Camino. This is the update on yesterday's walk.

This is the sign board at the entrance to Castrojeriz. I took a picture of the castle on the hill, but Blogger insists on turning it sideways, so I'm not going to include it here. We had breakfast there.

This is the flock of sheep that had preceded us out of Castrojeriz. The little dark blobs behind the sheep are fellow pilgrims. Also with the shepherd are 1 donkey and 1 sheepdog.

The sheep have turned off the road just where the grade warnings are posted. Yes, the climb was steep. And the far side was 18 degrees down slope, but only about 1/3 of a kilometer long.

This is where we stopped for the night.

Fifth day, a mix of things

Hello, everyone.  The fifth day started out in steady rain. Not the drenching tropical kind, just chill drops falling pretty well. We were walking on the shoulder of the national highway. (Think US highway system here.) A kind man gave us a lift to the next town and that was about when the rain stopped. 

That was the first 11 km of the day, to Aldeanueva. 

Then we walked 10 more to Baños de Montemayor, a lovely small town with hot springs. We had decided that we needed some rest days, so I popped onto Rome2Rio and got bus tickets to Salamanca. Then, still using the internet, we got a room for a few days. Strolled the town for a while and got onto the evening bus. This turned out to be the student bus and I think we got the last 2 seats.

A plate of pinchos in Baños.

Tired pilgrim resting on the way.

We arrived in Salamanca at 9 pm, got our room and some pinchos and collapsed into bed. (Silken Hotel Residencial Rona Alba, lovely place.) 

Recap: Camino Primitivo--After Lugo, to Ferreira

 Hello, everyone.

We return to the recap of the Camino Primitivo. At this point, as Lugo is the 100km town, we were in the final stage of our Camino walk.

This Roman mile marker was near the one bar we were able to have a rest and sip at during the day.

Later that day we encountered this trail mark with the usual Galician distance estimate.

The path was often a quiet road.

Another look at the quiet road, this time with less leaf litter on it.

We slept at the Albergue A Nave in Ferreira and we ate at the bar/cafe next door. I had tortilla de verduras, which was promised to be made with the produce of the owner's garden. We had walked past a lot of vegetable patches that day and almost all of them were well supplied with kale. Was there kale in the tortilla? No! There was, in addition to potato chunks, some eggplant and tomato. Even though it wasn't what I expected, the tortilla was good.

The following morning, we woke up at a suitable, early, time, dressed, and tried to head out. Fail. Not only was it still full dark at 8:40 or so in the morning, there was also fog on the road. We had to go back inside and wait for almost half an hour until there was light enough to walk by. (This is what happens when you walk into the shortening days--it was approaching the end of October by this time.)

Returning to the San Salvador--Last Day

 Hello, everyone.

View back toward Mieres in the dawn

Today's post returns to the pilgrimage for the last day of the walk into Oviedo.  This is a shorter day than many, but the middle portion was a very steep climb that was signed as a "greenway". The first portion was a gentle climb over switchbacks on the road and third portion was also gentle hill going through and around farms.

View of Oviedo in the distance

When we were walking through the farms, we met some of the farmers. They were very friendly and reminded us of the old saying, "He who visits Santiago and neglects to visit Oviedo, visits the servant and neglects the Master."

The actual entry into Oviedo was a gentle slope down suburban streets, passing the official albergue in Oviedo and arriving in the Cathedral square downtown. 

We had reserved a room at Hostel Fidalgo, the same pension we had stayed at when we bussed to Oviedo in 2018. This time, being mid October, it was a bit chilly in the room; the lady explained to us that the heat in the building is controlled for the whole building by the overall management. 

The tourism office wants everyone to know that Oviedo is the origin of the
 Camino de Santiago. Which it is, as Oviedo was the capital of
Asturias when the bones were found.

We paid our respects to the Sudario and the Cross of Victory from Covadonga when we went to the Cathedral to get our Salvadoranas.

The reliquary of the Sudario, the head cloth mentioned in the Gospel of John
 description of the apostles discovering that Jesus had been resurrected

The credencial for the Salvador, the bottom stamp is upside
down as the credencial is unfolded here and the
final stamp is on a different page.

The Salvadorana
It had to be weighted down to uncurl the shape of the carrying tube.

We took a rest day in Oviedo.

Recap of Pilgrimage 2021: Salvador part 2

 Hello, everyone.

The last update brought us to La Robla. Today's update carries on through Poladura de la Tercia.

When we left La Robla it was easy for a while. Eventually, after going through some villages and stopping at a gas station (they do exist and sometimes they're on the route) we followed a side road into the mountains.

We walked along the side of a narrow road that was clearly marked "Mountain Road" so drivers wouldn't be surprised by snow. Or falling rocks. There were snow poles from time to time. We saw an insect sunning itself on the pavement.

We took his picture, and forgot entirely to take a picture of the small river/large creek alongside the road. 

We eventually arrived at Buiza, around midday, where there was no refreshment supplier. There is a lovely fountain near the entrance of the town, but our water bottles were still full. We followed the trail through the town, passing some windowsill art

and fairly quickly arrived at a pasture with some fencing. One follows the arrows and goes through wire gates and up the hill.

This day takes the pilgrim past the Forcadas de San Anton, a set of very interesting rock formations, which while we walked past them we aren't sure which rocks were the famous ones.

Where the trail split, we took the downhill side, which passes a cross, and goes alongside some water. Then the trail stays pretty level for a long time. The first village we came to was not Poladura. It was San Martin. We had to follow the arrows out the back side of the village, down a caliche road, and then turn at a small building and follow a mostly-unused trail into Poladura. The building does have a yellow arrow painted on the side. And when we walked this way someone had been walking there recently with their (cute) little dog and left trodden down grass that we could follow.

This was a day that is not listed as a huge distance, but all of those kilometers were hard ones.

Our dinner and room at El Embrujo were wonderful. And we met some really neat people at their patio, too. As I don't have their permission, I won't name names, but we learned a lot about the ensuing days on the Salvador from one of them. 😉 And were grateful for the advice!

Tenth update on pilgrimage 2021

 Hello, everyone. 

We left Fonsagrada at about sunrise, a little before 9, in misty clouds. It wasn't actually wet enough to be rain, but it was chilly. It stayed chilly for much of the day. The sun barely peeped out later on.

I wore my Buff as a kerchief to keep my ears warm and it worked very well.

There was a portion of the day's walk with some steep ups and downs,  but there were also some very pretty bits. There was also road walking, the kind where you keep your left foot hitting the white line on the left side of the road. Most drivers also move over about half a lane to give room, but it's good to hug the edge if there is no shoulder to walk in.

We ended the day in O Cadavo, a small place with 2 grocery stores to choose from and a couple of bars. We stayed in a pension type room at the Albergue Porta Santa and went to the grocery store for easy, simple DIY supper and breakfast food. If you do this, by the way, don't just grab the first small jar of olives you see! You might end up with the very spicy ones canned with loads of hot peppers. 😉 

Our easy breakfast was prepared salad with some canned mussels added to improve the protein profile.  The easy breakfast was a half dozen eggs, boiled and cooled before we opened out creamy-salad packages for dinner. In the morning we pulled the boiled egs out of the kitchen fridge and peeled and salted them. Manzanilla to drink, we put our little tea bags into glasses, added cool water, and let the microwave do its thing.

At Fontaneira, after A Lastra, the local authorities are working on a beautiful boardwalk alongside the road. It's broad, they're using a board with little carved in stripes to make it textured, and they are putting in a fence along the edge where there is a drop off. All they need is a foot joint to be a very attractive rest point. (A Lastra apparently had 2 bars in the past but just we only saw the one and it was tiny...too chilly for sitting outside.) If the Camino Primitivo begins catching on the way it was starting to before 2020, improvements like this boardwalk should make people walking happy to pass through Fontaneira and look for a bar to snack at and rest a little. 

The Road Trip Continues

 Hello, everyone.

In the last post, the road trip arrived in Pueblo, Colorado. We resume there, with our drive into Denver.

This was a relaxing trip, so we didn't just dash up I25 to the big city. We drove to Colorado Springs on the freeway, and then went along smaller roads. 

(We didn't visit Garden of the Gods park, as we had done that in a previous trip some years back. It's very pretty, but we wanted to see new things. Garden of the Gods is a collection of very interesting rock formations in Colorado Springs.)

We drove west on US24 to Manitou Springs. There are various things in this area, as well as the lovely mountain views while driving. We visited the Manitou Springs Cliff Dwelling attraction. This is privately owned and is much more dog and family friendly than we expected a park service cliff dwelling site would be. 

Apparently each family had one
small, low-ceilinged room.

This is the photo of the nine family townhouse. 

The houses had door-blocking stones to seal the openings at night, both for the doors and for the small windows.

This apartment was unusual because of the 
carefully created lintels on the openings.

The information signs included some interesting information about winters in the area; the cliff dwelling apartments--low ceilinged and one roomed mostly--had no fireplaces in them. The thought is that when the door stones and window stones were in place the family would all snuggle up together under their animal skin or woven blankets (I don't know if these folks had the impressive weaving culture that later Indians have) and would stay warm enough together.

The apartments were visit-able, and the one that retained a balcony was reinforced so (one at a time!) a person could climb the ladder and see what it was like to view the valley from the balcony. 

The little village had what appeared to be a community cooking arrangement and also a community granary.

Upper story apartments were accessed by notches formed in the wall--surely there must have been more than these bare dips! like a rope?--or by wooden ladder. I would have hated to have to run like crazy with children to get ahead of a Blue-Norther type blizzard coming over the mountain if I had to get into one of those upper story apartments!

The pup viewing the parking lot,
photo taken from the balcony of
one of the aparments.

There is also a shop with many interesting things to buy, like books about the Indians who built the cliff dwellings and the natural plants of the area and so on. Plus of course the usual jewelry and tee shirts, etc. The shop is also dog friendly, though we kept our pup outside as we were concerned that she might wag her tail in the wrong place. The shop also included a museum.

We continued west along US24 and took the turn on US285, which went through Fairplay, and then through Breckenridge--pretty place, with dog-friendly restaurants (picnic tables on patio allow your leashed pup) and a war memorial honoring the 10th Mountain Division.

The skiing soldier has a pack on his back, which doesn't show well at this angle. I do wonder if the sculptor forgot to ask for photos of the men rigged up to fight when making this, the pack doesn't look large enough to hold a rifle and I didn't notice one slung over the shoulder either. But it's a lovely memorial anyway, and conveniently in town so it can be viewed while strolling between restaurants and parking spaces. 

A sharp-eyed reader will note that the mountains in this area still had snow on their tops. (Behind the statue.)

After visiting Breckenridge, we took I70 into Denver. As interstate highways go, this is quite scenic. 

Israel pilgrimage: Fifteenth in series

Hello, everyone.

By now, we were close to the end of our visiting in the Holy Land. It was the day after the Stations of the Cross, which had been a lot of standing and a fair amount of walking on pavement. On this day we began by visiting the last surviving wall of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem.

(Herod's temple was I believe an enlargement of the second temple that was built by returnees during the Persians' rule. I think we're talking about the book of Nehemiah here, but am not completely sure. At any rate, later after the Maccabees pushed the imperialist Greek colonizers--who insisted that the occupants of this area become Greek pagans like themselves instead of letting them live their own lives with their own religion--there was unrest and much turnover in the kingship of the area. The Romans having come along by then, they grew impatient with the fighting over the king's seat and put in place the family of Herod as kings. One of the Herods decided to make the temple in Jerusalem really impressive and added on to it.)

The western wall foundation is the last remnant of Herod's temple. The rest was torn down during the rebellion of about 100 AD when the Romans rolled through in force and sacked the city.

Pigeons in a niche in the wall.

Ladies praying at the wall. (The local custom is for the ladies to have a section that is theirs and the gentlemen to have a section that is theirs.) It is the strictly observed custom for all the ladies to wear hats or scarves and all the gentlemen to wear a kippah, the Jewish mens' cap, while visiting the Western Wall.

Ruins in the vicinity of the wall.

There were a lot of people there. We saw a number of groups processing in to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of their young man, carrying canopies and singing and being accompanied by drummers and other musicians. Some of them were dancing as they went. (To respect the privacy of the various people in these groups, I am not putting those pictures up.)

After that visit, we went by bus over to the church of St Peter in Gallicante, St Peter of the Crowing Rooster. (So named because here St. Peter was called out by various persons as part of Jesus' party and in an attempt to remain low profile he denied that he knew Jesus. And the third time he did so, the rooster crowed.)

A good look at the front of the church of Gethsemane, which is too close to the sidewalk for a view of the mosaic above the entrance, but from across the Kidron valley shows beautifully.

St Peter in Gallicante is built over the ruins of the house of Caiaphas the High Priest, who as y'all will remember was the one who interrogated Jesus after His arrest and convened a (kangaroo-style) court to judge Him. After the group of elders they had on hand condemned Jesus to death, they stored Him in an old grain cellar, lowering Him by rope, until morning. Then they dragged Him over to Pilate to convince the Romans to permit the death penalty.

These days there are stairs down to the grain cellar. Groups take turns paying respects to the site.

After this visit, we went to Ein Kerem, which is not pronounced in the German fashion like I expected but instead as if the I in Ein isn't actually there, and visited the Church of the Visitation. (The Visitation is the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, it is when Mary visited her cousin St. Elizabeth and is described briefly in the Gospel of Luke.)

Ein Kerem is in the hills and we had a very respectable walk uphill to the church. It was the longest continuous walk in our visit to the Holy Land.

There was a very peaceful outdoor chapel there where our pastor offered Mass.

When we returned to the parking area at the bottom we discovered that there is a walk in the hills around the area. The trail mark was oval and two-colored; it looked to me like the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings

but I'm sure the people who picked it out were probably unaware that a movie would pick that shape for the eye years later.

This was the last stop of another full day.

Israel pilgrimage, eleventh in series

Hello, everyone.

Before discussing the remainder of the day, begun in the last post, a picture that I found in the files. This is from the Church of the Last Supper. (The shrine adjacent to the Room of the Last Supper, as discussed in that post. As the Room is a historical site administered by the government, no Masses are allowed there. Masses take place in the shrine nearby.)

This modern treatment of the Last Supper, also called the Institution of the Eucharist (last of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary), shows the consternation of the disciples when Jesus altered the traditional ritual of the Passover meal. No "why is this night different from all other nights?" and so on! No wonder they were shocked. On the right we see that some were less disconcerted and more understanding how it could be that He would give them His Body and Blood to eat and drink. (This question had been raised earlier by Jesus' preaching. See John chapter 6 I think it is for more details.)

After lunch, we visited the Church of Pater Noster, the place traditionally regarded as where Jesus gave the disciples the Lord's Prayer. (Not including the phrase often added at the end, "for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" which is an eleventh century prayer that just kind of got pasted on over the years.)

 This explanatory tile picture shows the plan of the area. It is a French shrine. There are many, many tile presentations of various translations of the Our Father--well over 100 if I remember correctly.

Two of the many translations of the Lord's Prayer

The grotto where Jesus was teaching His disciples at that time. Note that there is protective glass to keep people from (a) filling the space with little notes of petition, (b) crawling in there and getting stuck or injured, (c) vandalizing the place out of pure meanness. (Remember that nut in Rome who took a hammer to the Michaelangelo Pieta statue in St. Peter's Basilica?) 

This small cave does remind me of the famous saying in the Gospel that what has been whispered in the dark will be shouted from the rooftops.

The altar in the church has the prayer in Latin.

After this we went over to the vicinity of the Garden of Olives. Partway down the hill is the site called Dominus Flevit, Jesus Wept in English. (No, this is not an exclamation of shock. It refers to an incident in the Gospel when Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and contemplated the future fate of the city as it then stood.)

There is a teardrop-shaped small church there. We didn't go inside as there was another group preparing to offer Mass. I did stand in the door, with my camera on "discreet" mode, and capture the mosaic image on the altar. "O Jerusalem, how often I have wanted to gather you unto me as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!"

At the time I thought the bird was perhaps a phoenix but now I see that it is, indeed, a brooding hen with her chicks.

We continued on down the side of the ravine that is called the Kidron Valley, some of which was a bit steep and had me zig-zagging my path down the slope. There was basically no sidewalk along there, a narrow lane of passage, a long spaced out line of clumps of people, and occasional cars. Thus very short zigs were required!

The oldest living olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane.



 The carvings of olive tendrils on the outside of the church.

An explanatory sign about the history of the church on the site. Note the repeated destructions by conquerors.

The mosaic of Jesus' Agony in the Garden, when we are told that angels came and comforted Him in His distress. (His disciples, being fed, and wined, and tired after a long day, were unable to stay awake in the dimness and keep watch with Him.)