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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Pilgrimages

Dear Family and Friends,

Back when we were in France taking the back road trip we kept seeing these signs.


When we were in Bilbao, we saw tiles like this in the sidewalk.


We have seen these signs or some very similar this whole trip.

It turns out that these signs are marking the way to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.  The Cathedral here contains the relics of Saint James.

People have been walking to this very location from all over Europe since about 950AD.

Here are some links Chuck found to share if you are interested in knowing all about this.

http://www.santiago-compostela.net/

http://www.caminosantiagodecompostela.com/

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James,_son_of_Zebedee

We spent most of today walking the streets of this old town and visiting the Cathedral.

Here are some pictures...

The main place to visit and see is, of course, the Cathedral


We went inside, of course, and although photography was discouraged, I had to take a picture of this.

Instead of lighting real candles, if you want to burn a candle, you just drop your money in a slot and an electric candle is lit.


We walked all through the very old town.

The stonework on the buildings were incredible.

Here is a carving on the side of a building showing Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus fleeing to Egypt.


Here is one that is scarry looking.



The streets were very narrow.....just pedestrian streets.


Here is someone we all know and love.


There were a lot of tourist shops.  They all featured items that had to do with making a pilgrimage to this city.
This is a bucket of shells.  The pilgrims, hundreds of years ago, would display a shell to show that they were doing the pilgrimage and people would house them and feed them along their journey.


Here are some of the pilgrim figurines that were for sale.

Here are some stone pilgrims.


A ceramic pilgrim.


And this cute little pilgrim. I really like him. Notice the shell on his hat and the road sign below his left hand showing him the way to go.


They even had walking sticks with shells on them.


We were even fortunate to run into a modern day pilgrim.  This young man had just come into town.  He had walked for eight days from Leon, Spain.


Here he is with Chuck proudly showing off the certificate he got from the church verifying that he had made the pilgrimage.


Here is a close-up of his certificate.


We did detour from our sightseeing when we ran across a winery.  We went inside for a tasting.


The wine maker posed with Chuck, showing off this bread.  I don't know why the bread was important.


Chuck tasted a white wine.  He said it was very good.  He noticed that there was a sign that said you could buy the wine by the liter for only 90 cents.....if you bring your own container.  We didn't have a container with us so we had to miss out on that great deal.

Tomorrow we are going to Lugo on the back roads.  Can't wait.

Love,
Nancy

7 comments:

  1. Shelagh KouwenhovenMarch 14, 2012 at 6:42 PM

    Watched a show on tv last week all about this pilgrimage . Funny that you are right there.

    We were in Europe driving a mini van 3 years ago, believe me I freaked out when filling it up. We did 6000kms from Holland to Italy and France and back again.

    We were lucky because it was a borrowed fancy van with all the bells and whistles, and includedl the camping gear.

    We had been paid in euros to do some painting of a family house and were offered use of van and camping gear. No brainer, we went on a road trip for 3 weeks.

    It was a dream of ours and lucky for us family paved the way. Hubby had just been made redundant after 30 years so we even had time!!!!!!!

    We are enjoying your travels in Spain, in Barcelona on the Ramblas we paid 15 Euros each for a big glass of Sangria ......You only live once kinda moment

    Cheers,
    Shelagh and Peter
    .

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  2. Have you watched the movie "The Way"? It's Dave and my best movie of the year choice. It's a story based on the Camino de Santiago. Written and produced by Emilio Estevez and stars his dad Martin Sheen.

    Dave leaves 4/1 for the UK to hike half the Pennine Way.

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  3. Wow! A recent TV show and a movie. Maybe I can find the movie in Cuenca and watch it.

    Thanks for letting us know.

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  4. I enjoy reading about your travel - from Dallas, Texas

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  5. Thanks so much anonymous from Dallas.

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  6. Sounds like such a fun trip, and agree with kitkatknit about the movie "The Way"...We got it a few months ago, have watched it several times and one of our favorite movies of all time!
    Todd and I now have that pilgrimage on our bucket list, and so glad you are getting to see this area (jealous!!!)..
    Can't wait to hear more!

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  7. Leigh, If I were younger and more fit, I would love to do the pilgrimage also.

    I would love to see the movie. I hope I can find it in Cuenca.

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Comments are welcome.