Astorga

Astorga is an old city. The Romans were here. Pliny referred to it as Asturica Augusta.

I don't know the history well, but it is still a crossroads and the religious center for parts of several provinces.

We have our own history here. This is the church where we were married. Sorry, no wedding pictures. We walked the last 16 km. in time to make it to mass today - a big moment for us. Very emotional. Note to Pastor Mike; you would EAT THIS UP!

Leon

We know this place a little. Mary went to high school here. It's changed some since then. But it happened that we walked by the house she used to live in. Now our nephew lives here. We visit from time to time.

There's a nice cathedral here too.

Noplace Exactly

I hardly noticed the change. Leaving Burgos, where until then we traveled through small villages, pueblos they call them, that were nothing today as they had been in the past, as evidenced by the fine churches left from an ancient age; we have entered Castilla. What isn't evident at first is that the history seems lost.



We have traveled three days through towns like this. Nothing to see. No fine churches here. If the original camino went through here, and it surely did, there is almost no evidence of it. Even Sahagún, which is reasonably large and retains something is nothing like what we have passed.







And the history is changing again. These pueblos are being depopulated. The arrival of the tractor has allowed an old man and his dog to cultivate the whole region. The grapes are gone. The bodegas are in ruin too. And more foreboding, the children are gone to find work in the cities.

But this is our place. These are the people we know. We lived this in a day before tractors.

Yesterday I met a Viking pilgrim from the Faroe Islands. His name is Helgi. He knows old Norse and he told me he had been singing the verses of a legend about Charlemagne while walking through Roncesvalles. It was interesting to him to see the places that the verses referred to.

Hornillos del Camino

I didn't put this up on the Santo Domingo post because I thought it silly. But there is a legend there about chickens.

"Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde canto la gallina despues de asada."

It is said, or believed, depending on who you talk to, that a boy and his father were traveling through on their way to Santiago and a young girl took a fancy to the boy who would have nothing to do with her. So, she put a silver cup in his things and reported him as a thief. He was found with the cup, tried, and hung. The next morning the boy's father found his son alive, but didn't want to leave the town again without telling the judge that his son was innocent and alive due to the intervention of Santo Domingo. The judge, who was eating a chicken dinner when told said, "I'll believe that when this chicken gets up and walks". At which the chicken got up walked and crowed. To this day they keep caged chickens in the church. Really, and if you ask people from Santo Domingo if they believe that story they will tell you there other things more difficult to believe. I would tell you God works more subtly, more mysteriously. You have to pay attention. Maybe that's just me.

Here in Hornillos, a pueblo of 50 people and maybe less and a temporary population of more than 200 pilgrims, I noticed this fountain with the rooster on top.




So, I asked about it wondering if it were somehow there for a similar reason. No.

I was told by one who confessed that she might not be the best to know that during a time when people kept chickens - I didn't see any myself, but thought that could be anything over 20 yrs. ago - that the French army would come by and by morning all the chickens would be gone. So, it must have been during the Peninsular War, ca. 1800, but that wasn't said. Anyway, the people knew what was happening to the chickens and they knew the route the French would take out of town. So, they caught up with them and accused them of stealing their chickens. Which the French quickly denied. Without any proof they had started back to town when a rooster crowed from within one of the French drums. Nothing was said about what might have happened after that, but the rooster stands today as a warning not to be stealing chickens here!

And that's the truth.

Burgos

Here lies buried Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (El Cid Campeador) and his wife Doña Jimena. But that's a different history.

We have entered the meseta of Castilla-Leon. With the fall of the Roman Empire this area lay abandoned. One couldn't depended on being able to harvest a crop if it were planted. At the beginning of the reconquest population from the mountains settled this area to raise cereals and a bit later shepherds brought sheep to be sheared from the south. Burgos lies at the foot of a pass in the coastal range to the north with connection to Santander; among the earliest settlements of the meseta. The city was founded in something like 800 a.d. - give or take - the era of Charlemagne. Since then it has been a significant marketplace and religious center.



The cathedral here is so famous that even I have heard about it. The one in Sevilla is bigger. When they started that one they wrote that they would build one so big that men for all time would think they were crazy. That's an attitude I admire. This is big too. Much doesn't fit in the camera frame. It is often said to be the nicest in Spain.






No argument from me. Lots of steeples to admire. We usually have to settle for just one.













The choir.



Carved and inlaid (marquetry).




Burgos is a big place, but we're finding this all along the camino. You might see these as museums, but they are not. People use them today in the same way they always have. Though they reflect a time in which people were unafraid to appear religious. Today they seem extravagant, but they are not. They are no more extravagant than pouring out a bottle of ointment on the feet. Somebody will have to help me find that passage.

Santo Domingo de la Calzada

Yesterday was Santo Domingo (May 12). It's still fiesta here.

I'm beginning to understand what this is all about. It's hard to get used to this.




















All along the camino we find these things.

Bodega tour

Written 12 May
What I said about good wines being made in 30 minutes - forget it. Year wines are good by my (admittedly low) standards, but these people are in a different business.




Dark down there. Reminded me of something you might have seen on Dr. Who. Each barrel holds 1,600 liters.



Second fermentation. They served us a couple of wines to compare and among them was a gran reserva. There is a reason to be patient.

Everything pure, everything natural, everything controlled. They are making exactly what they want from the best grapes, the best grape varieties and the best grape growing climate in the world.

None of this should be taken as though I would be giving up on year wines. Interesting day.