Leon

My long day of travel ended in Leon.  I also joined my fellow hospitalera, Beth Lord from Seattle.  We will take the rest of Thursday and part of Friday to recover from the flight, drink coffee and see the city.

This building is called Casa Botines.  It was designed and built by Antoni Gaudi in 1892-3.  Gaudi is best known for many buildings in Barcelona.  This building is fairly conventional.  He is best known for his whimsical designs in Barcelona.

 This the cathedral in Leon.  The guidebooks about Spain describe the three great Gothic cathedrals in Spain: Sevilla, Burgos and Leon.  This church dominates the city.  It's visible for miles to the east as pilgrims approach.

Friday was adventure day.  Our alburgue is in a small village (150 people) and not on a bus route.  There is a daily bus east from Leon to a small town nearby that arrives at 6:45 pm.  We hopped off the bus and asked a local senora which was the road to Calzadilla.  She replied that we should go to another town to start, we couldn't get there from where we were standing.  I knew that we could so we set off walking and reached here about 8:30 pm.  Saturday, the previous hospitalero gave us the keys and now and now we are "on the job" and so far nine pilgrims have stopped to spend the night.

Secret Pilgrim photos revealed

In a exclusive blogspot story, this author has discovered photos of the stuff that pilgrims carry in their packs.  Many have suggested pilgrims wear special clothing and carry many cult items.  It turns out that pilgrims have fairly ordinary stuff like pants and toothpaste and socks.  Here is the photo:

I survived Dallas to Madrid and now in Leon recuperating.  More photos in the net entry.

The Camino Symbol

The symbol for the Camino de Santiago is, in my mind, one of the most expressive visual signs that I have ever seen.  In fact, it's so good that it actually has multiple meanings.

The symbol is a stylized scallop shell.  The scallop shell is the universally accepted symbol for the Apostol James or Santiago and has been for a thousand years.  Real scallop shells were used in the middle ages as way markers, indicated places friendly to pilgrims and were a souvenir that pilgrims took home after their pilgrimage. Today, tiles just like this one line the caminos in Spain and serve as way markers along with the ever-present and much searched-for yellow arrows.

The rays of the scallop also represent the many caminos in Spain, Portugal, France and all of Europe that eventually converge in Santiago de Compostella.

Can it be a directional pointer?  One can imagine a sort of arrow with the junction of all the rays as the point.  The tile above is then pointing to the right.  The pilgrim community inevitably has this discussion as it moves across Spain.  Yes, it could be a pointer if the people doing the installation of the tiles would agree on the correct orientation.

Lastly, the European Union was born about the same time as the current revival of the Camino.  The politicians in Brussels and Frankfurt saw the Camino as the perfect expression of a new unified and borderless Europe.  A Europe that would be a mirror of the Camino values of patience, tolerance, generosity, kindness and optimism. Current events have put tremendous pressure on those values but the dream remains alive.

The Camino

I'm getting ready for another trip to Spain to volunteer in an alburgue and walk for a few days.  My friends wonder with all the places in the world to visit, why do I keep going back to the camino?   Difficult to answer.  Long explanation.  Eyes glaze over. The easy answer - because I like it.  I like everthing about it, the place, the people, the feeling.  The poets manage it the best.  Concise, visual, emotional.

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow if I can.
                                                   Bilbo Baggins

Walker, your footsteps
are the road and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
                                                   Antonio Machado

like a person and place you had sought forever,
like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;
like another life, and the road still stretching on.
                                                   David Whyte

I go to the camino to reset my inner self and to remember once again that there is good in the world.  I go to test myself, physically, sure, but also see if can I still be patient and kind and forgiving and generous.  I go to see the divesity of the world.  I go to live in the moment where there is no tomorrow or yesterday, only right now.