Camino Frances

  Short hop today into León , just 19Km, which is probably a good thing after a night on the oldest and most lumpy mattress in Christendom. My hostel here is within the old city walls but as I can’t get in until two, I think a spot of lunch and a wander around the cathedral is probably in order. Why I wonder, do I feel such a connection with these places? Whilst I’m not a religious man in the conventional sense, these places do transport me. To a simpler age perhaps, an age of different values. I can sit for hours in here and just let the calm descend. This place was built mainly in the 13th century and is an extraordinary example of Gothic architecture, similar to the great cathedrals of France. Famous for its magnificent stained-glass windows, it was an important religious and cultural symbol of the Kingdom of León and a key landmark for pilgrims travelling the Camino. I wandered down to the hostel for 14:00 and found a Frenchman trying to get in. After a certain amount of swear...

  We were certainly tightly packed last night, sixteen of us on eight bunks in a comparatively small room at the Albergue in Bercianos del Real Camino; a night of varied smells and noises and almost impossible to get to the bathroom. Excellent dinner though with the usual gang plus a rather nice landscape gardener from Glastonbury and a retired financier from Hong Kong. This chap was brought up under British rule but is quite an advocate for the Chinese system - interesting to chat to as I get into my ‘China after Mao’ tome. My final day on the Meseta today as tomorrow I get into León, so long flat path tracking along the road with little to look at apart from the odd mural. Strangely, the bathroom at the hostel in Mansilla de las Mulas had a bath. So, as I was first there, the sociopath in me decided to lock the door and climb in, oblivious to the pathetic taps on the door from fellow pilgrims, desperate to clean their teeth - I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunity for me to a...

Albergue Los Templarios was excellent, huge stone sinks in the garden for doing your washing, decent food (lots of good red wine) and I ended up sharing a room with a nice Argentinian Departed Terradillos de Templarios bright and early, for what turned out to be a fairly dull, grey sort of day with the path following a main road most of the way. Stopped at the village of San Nicolás del Real Camino for coffee and croissant but other than that spent the day wandering along educating myself on ‘China after Mao’. Checked into the hostel at Bercianos del Real Camino and I discover my gang (Irishman, American and Brit) are staying in the same place, should be a good evening…  

Greetings from Terradillos de Templarios and at 390Km, I’m reckoned to be exactly halfway. This place is only a small village but is interesting because as the name suggests, it was a fiefdom of the Knights Templar, a military order founded in 118 in Jerusalem, whose purpose was to protect pilgrims traveling the Camino de Santiago. As people have been walking the Camino for a thousand years, give or take; one’s mind wanders to what inspired those early pilgrims to make this journey all those years ago. Unlike today with all the bars and hostels along the way, the path must have been gruelling and hostile to say the least. They must have had absolute faith that a visit to the shrine of the Apostle James would literally provide the answer to their prayers. Today whilst some still tread the path for reasons of faith, others are simply here for the challenge. There are those who think that taking time out from their lives will provide the space to wrestle with important questions and then ...

The hostel was great and although there were 24 of us in the dorm last night, no loud snorers. Mind you, my bed was too close to the bathroom door and each time the long procession of ‘men of a certain age’ went for a pee throughout the night, the automatic bathroom light shone right at me. For me this is the middle point of the Camino, Day 15 of 30 with a little under half the distance covered, 365km. Another early start and another long and flat day on the Meseta, much of which was spent following a river and crisscrossing old industrial canals. Spent the day chatting to my Irish mate, a lovely fella who has come out the other side of some huge personal challenges and is now determined to ‘give something back. He’s doing his Camino to raise money for cancer, suicide prevention, and MND charities. Another larger town this evening. Carrion de Los Condes.      

  Another longer day so an earlier start from the wonderful old rural village of Hontanas. The hostel last night was fine and whilst the foot spa was somewhere between disappointing and non existent, the communal meal was fantastic, an absolutely enormous paella in the company of an American welder, a German rocket scientist and a Dutch Director of an institute for the clinically insane – the conversation was certainly varied. Kept myself to myself today on the Meseta which is lovely, an endless gravel path stretching far into the distance across wide open plains. Lost in my thoughts and started a new book on the climate crisis, ‘Not the end of the world’ by Hannah Ritchie is a very nice balance between debunking climate myths, highlighting what humanity has actually achieved in this regard, and a data based reality of what we have to do to protect the planet for future generations.  varied Boadilla del Camino is another ancient town with a wonderful old church. Big dorm room...

  20 mile day today so I left the hostel early and picked my way out of Burgos through the old city as dawn was breaking. I wandered along tree lined avenues next to the river and past the cathedral where the sound of matins gave a sort of ancient magic to the cool morning air. When you leave Burgos on the Camino Frances, you are considered to be on the “Meseta”, a long stretch of high Castilian plateau across central northern Spain. The Meseta takes you along open tracks through vast open fields. Civilisation is rare so water and bananas are essential. It is supposed to be a wonderful period for peaceful mental reflection or can be just be a long monotonous struggle depending on your point of view and the weather. I’m with the former view, it’s lovely open country with fewer people as at this stage as the pilgrims are starting to spread out. For me this is a time for good thinking and good audio books. Today’s ‘read’ is Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, a polemic on the ...