Spain

December 2006

Earlier this year, I read the book ‘Spanish Steps’ by one of my favourite writers called Tim Moore. It was the saga of him leading a donkey across the Pilgrim’s Route (‘Camino de Santiago’) to Santiago de Compostela near the north-western coast of the Spanish province of Galicia. I quite fancied the idea of walking this 500 mile route.

With a few days to spare after Xmas, I discovered cheap Ryan air tickets from London Stansted to Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain (for £24 inc tax each if you can believe that), so Lori and I decided to have a quick break and it gave me the excuse to do a ‘recce’ on the Camino de Santiago.

Upon arrival at the small airport, we picked up our car rental, and drove east to Pamplona, arriving after dark. En route we hit a huge hypermarket and stocked up on lots of goodies for the trip. We could find our way into the busy city centre but not out again! The city of 200,000 people is surrounded by two ring roads with no signs on it. I was looking for the airport where I knew there was a hotel, but we didn’t see a sign to the airport until we found the airport itself.

Pamplona has been the capital of the Navarra region (Basque country) for over 1000 years. It is most famous for the ‘running of the bulls’ (Encierro) every July during its Fiesta de San Fermin (one day….I’ll be back). The centre was packed. There was no where to park and the police moved me on twice when Lori was taking photos of the attractive Paseo Sarasete strip with its Monumentos a los Fueros. So we didn’t get a chance to explore the backstreets, cathedral or the castle. Instead, we drove around trying to find a way out of the centre.

The Hotel Husa Noain was warm and comfortable but with a 7% sales tax, the room was an expensive 63 Euros. Noain itself was a ghost town but we found a large shopping mall off the ring road, where the takeaway restaurants were packed at 10.30pm.

The next morning was sunny but the car was covered in ice. It was -5%. Originally, I had intended to drive west to join the Pilgrim’s Way, but the hotel had a colourful leaflet of what sights were in Navarra and I spotted a photo of the impressive looking Olite castle. I told Lori that it was “only 30 odd kilometres away” and so I decided to make a detour there first. Or rather, I got lost on the one way system first. The slow twisty road was soon shrouded in thick fog and by the time we reached Olite, it was snowing. Despite the fact that Olite is just a village, in the fog and snow, we could not see anything – not even a bloody great castle. Fantastic!

Eventually, I followed my nose through tiny alleyways and we came across it. The ‘Rough Guide’ had a few lines about “a magnificent castle which was once the residence of the kings of Navarra. An amazing ramshackle ramble of turrets, keeps and dungeons”. Er, that’s it. Despite the weather, it was quite impressive and we pottered around trying to justify all the effort we had put in to reach it. This explains why all the photos look bleached out.

We beat a hasty retreat back through the fog to the Camino de Santiago at Estella and backtracked further to Puente la Reina. I had driven about 90 km to reach a town twenty kilometres west of Pamplona. Doh!

Some background on the Camino de Santiago: Legend has it that James, one of Jesus’ apostles was sent on an evangelical mission to North West Spain. But both arrogant and ‘tired and emotional’, he only recruited seven disciples. Back in the Holy Land, he was beheaded in 44AD. His remains were apparently taken by sea to Galicia (where the beach where they came ashore was littered with scallop shells - that came to symbolise Santiago) and buried somewhere. They (his remains, not the scallop shells) were lost for 750 years. By now the Muslim Moors had overrun most of Christian Spain and the Christians were looking for something to rally around for morale. Guess what? St James’ bones were miraculously ‘rediscovered’ (on 25th July 813AD) and his remains were buried at a church/monastery that eventually became Santiago de Compostela. Then the stories began to spread. He was both a humble pilgrim and James the Moor-Slayer (supposedly killing 60,000 at the Battle of Clavijo in 852AD – a good trick if you’re dead).

To quote Tim Moore, he was “a mascot for the cuddly Christians who sought to love their neighbours, and an insatiable psychopath for those who’d sooner decapitate them. It was this broad fan base, tempted from their homes by a praise-one-get-one-free pilgrimage, that made Santiago de Compostela one of the Christian world’s must sees” (p8).

Pilgrims started coming from the Ninth century onwards and by the Twelfth Century, it is estimated that anywhere between one quarter and half a million pilgrims were arriving in Santiago EVERY YEAR. Based on this, it is estimated that anywhere between a third and a fifth of all Europeans may have made this journey. As the Council of Europe, noted when declaring the Camino its first Cultural Route, ‘the Compostela pilgrimage is considered the biggest mass movement of the Middle Ages’.

Apart from the ‘Get Out of Hell Free’ card (Tim Moore), there were many reasons they came: the sick came for a cure; anyone with a problem was told to go; some came for education and adventure; some came to rob the adventurous and troubled; some came to represent their villages and ask that famines or disease disappear; some came on behalf of others (lords and masters).

With the sheer numbers of pilgrims, a formidable organisational infrastructure developed in Medieval Spain: churches, monasteries, convents, hospitals and schools started to appear along the route, all with the aim of facilitating the passage of pilgrims. The infrastructure is still there in the form of cheap hospices and restaurants. The Way of St James is one of the cheapest trips you can still make as long as you don’t mind walking!

My idea was to explore the Camino de Santiago for a couple of days, take in some of the more famous sites and try and reach Santiago itself if possible. It was a tall order, especially starting so late on Day 1. However, since it is officially a European Cultural route, it is well marked by both yellow arrows and scallop shells (the badge of the pilgrims) along with frequent information signs.

The route actually starts in two separate places on the French side of the Pyrenees: the Navarrese trail, via Roncesvalles and Pamplona and the Argonese one, via Leyre and Santuesa. About 100 kilometres into the daily trudge, they come together at Puerte de Reina. “Perhaps no town is more perfectly evocative of the days of the medieval pilgrimage” (Rough Guide). Indeed, the old eleventh century bridge is said to be the finest medieval bridge in Spain and even in the mist, it was a beauty (see photographs) with seven semi circular arches (one is underground) and is now pedestrianised. There was an Information office next to the bridge, where I had a look at the visitor’s book. Flipping back as far as April, there was not one English entry (even the Japanese had a few). I changed this by adding ‘Hugh G. Rection’ to the lists.

At the other end of town, we found the Iglesia del Crucifijo, originally a Twelfth Century foundation of the Knights Templar, with its porch decorated with scallop shells. As with over half the churches we visited, it was closed. Next door was a former pilgrim’s hospice, one of the oldest on the route. We did see our first pilgrim outside town, an old man. But he was hitching a ride – obviously fed up with the drizzly weather.

The trail twisted close to the road. We drove up into the tiny hill town of Cirauqui (Basque for ‘nest of vipers’), through narrow alley ways. The church was open and a bunch of children were about to start a carol service in front of an ornate gilded altar. From the town, there was a lovely view over the area including the old Roman road (Via Traiana) which was the original pilgrim’s way. There was a carved scallop shell on a wall to point the way.

Estella lay further on, “a beautiful town rich in monuments and …a wealth of churches” (Rough Guide) - all closed. It did have a splendid hump backed bridge. By now the sun had returned and it was easy to forget that we has been in the snow and fog so recently.

The route followed the main road to Logrono, and we were keen to push on to Irache. I had read that there was a Cistercian monastery here next to the Museo de Vino (principally a showroom for the winery next door) which gave pilgrims free wine. Free wine? Sure enough, near the impressive but plain monastery, we found the two taps – one providing water and one providing wine. We stuck our mouths under the tap and gargled the wine before filling up a plastic bottle of the ‘Vino Grim’ as I coined it. “Tastes like shit, but you can drink it” as Crocodile Dundee would say.

We were in the middle of vineyard and winery country and we found another picturesque village based around a winery just up the road. It would have been tempting to just park up the car and lay in the winter sun and drink free wine all day, but we had places to visit and churches to find closed.

Los Arcos is a blur. Another town, another closed church of Santa Maria. Most churches seemed to be called this on the trail. However, Torres Del Rio was another lovely little hill town built around the octagonal Church of the Holy Sepulture. Unfortunately today, a large digger was digging itself in around the church which was closed. But the view across the valley was splendid in the mist.

Viana was the last stop before the Vasco-Navarre border, another “attractive place with many beautiful Renaissance and Baroque palatial houses in addition to the Gothic church of Santa Maria with its outstanding Renaissance carved porch” (Rough Guide). This was indeed a lovely place with its Town Hall in the cobbled Plaza de los Fueros, playing Xmas music out of speakers and the impressive Santa Maria church dominating the square with its ornate. The church was closed. Why were all the churches closed? I think it was ‘Siesta’ time. They seemed to open up after 4pm.

Lograno was the capital of La Rioja and grew up due to the Camino de Santiago, but when we pulled into town, the roads were full of traffic and we decided to skip tackling the shoppers to find another church when there were so many others to visit.

So we followed the route to Najera (Moorish for ‘place between crags’) which was dramatically situated below a pink rock formation and had an interesting (closed) Gothic monastery, Santa Maria la Real. From Lograno the terrain was quite flat and the Pilgrim’s way followed closely to the road. It must have been quite demoralising for the walkers to watch cars passing them at great speed, covering in an hour what would take them up to a week. We saw eight pilgrims today, mostly pairs and some with dogs.

Santa Domingo de la Calzada, 46km west of Logrono, owes its very existence to the pilgrimage. It takes its name from a saint who settled here in the Eleventh century and devoted his life to assisting travellers by paving roads, tending the sick and engineering bridges (hence Calzada, or causeway). The Rough Guide called it a “dull, unattractive place for the most part” but I thought it was a nice town. Santa Domingo was once a fortified town and some of the walls can still be seen. The Cathedral lies in the centre off the main square, with a detached Baroque tower looming over the town. St Domingo himself is buried in the crypt.

The siesta was over and a door was unlocked to give us entry to a small praying area which allowed us to get a glimpse of the interior with its tombs and er, pair of caged chickens. The legend has it that a young German pilgrim was passing through with his parents and a local innkeeper’s daughter fancied him. When he spurned her advances, she falsely accused him of theft and he was hung from the gallows. He was apparently kept alive by the miraculous intervention of Santo Domingo. The judge eating a roast chicken disbelieved this and said “He’s as dead as that chicken”, which then came to life and flew off. Consequently, the Cathedral has had chickens ever since. I read another story that it was good luck to throw bread up to the chickens, but if they didn’t eat it, the pilgrim would come to a grizzly end on the trail. As it was, we had no access to the chickens, but we have a photo of the beasts in a cage high up on a wall.

We left Santa Domingo via the lovely causeway which had thirteen arches and took us towards Burgos via Belorado and San Juan de Ortega. It was a fast drive into Burgos which we reached around 5pm. We had sacrificed Logrono to make sure we could see the much more impressive Burgos Cathedral in daylight.

Burgos was the capital of Old Castile for five hundred years and is more infamous as the home of ‘El Sid’ a medieval eleventh century mercenary, mostly known by a Charlton Heston movie. But it is the famous Gothic cathedral, one of the greatest in Spain which draws the crowds and dominates the old section of the town. “Its florid filigree of spires and pinnacles is among the most extraordinary achievements of Gothic art…almost every entrance and chapel seems to be of interest” (Rough Guide).

Inside, there were endless side chapels, including the Capilla del Condestable , almost a cathedral in itself and the Capilla del Santo Cristo which contained the ‘Cristo de Burgos’, a thirteenth century image of Christ endowed with real human hair and the withered hide of a water-buffalo. Creepy! The Cathedral charged four Euros entrance, but if you were a Pilgrim and could produce your card, it only cost one Euro, which seemed like a good idea. I think that the outside of Burgos Cathedral was a major highlight on our pilgrimage.

Time was flying by and we had not covered as much ground as we expected (but rather more than the walking pilgrims), and darkness was falling. We left the Pilgrim’s Way (skipping Castrojeriz) and drove along the A231. En route to our left, we could see an old castle spot-lit in floodlights which looked wonderful in the dark. At Osorno, we then turned south to Fromista, a small town which had the next major sight on the Camino de Santiago.

Fromista named for its abundant cereal, contained the beautiful church of San Martin (1066), which was originally part of an eleventh century Benedictine monastery and one of the best examples of Romanesque architecture in Spain. This was also lit up at night (and closed of course).

We had assumed that Fromista would have lots of accommodation for pilgrims, but after a drive around the town, we found only one pension near San Martins. A nice lady let us into the empty 1 Star affair where there was no heating. The car thermometer was registering -5’c when we arrived. There was nothing open in town and we were reduced to eating our supermarket food, drinking cheap plonk and watching a Spanish version of ‘Blind Date’ for the 50 year olds. Which was nice. We discovered from the Spanish news that Saddam Hussein had been hung since we left the UK.

It had been dark when we arrived and after a quick Spanish breakfast of coffee and bread, it was dark when we left. The temperature was -8’c and San Martin’s was still closed. So we drove to Villalcazar de Sirga 13km away, to see the Capilla de Santiago, a Romanesque/Gothic affair built by the Knights Templar which looked more like a fortress than a church. We could only see it in the dark but it looked forbidding.

There was virtually no sign of life in this town, but by the time we reached Carrion de los Condes up the road, dawn had broke and locals were inside cafes having pick-me-ups. Carrion had originally been taken by the Moors who demanded that one hundred virgins be surrendered to them annually. The town was originally retaken by the Christians and they were so pleased, they built lots of churches and monasteries. We visited the (closed) Church of St Mary of the Way (Santa Maria) and the Church of Santiago and drove over the sixteenth century bridge to the Monasterio de San Zoilo. I was impressed with Carrion (up the Khyber). It was completely geared to the Pilgrims with cafes offering cheap set meals and lots of pensions.

“Sahagun is generally thought to be the birthplace of the brick churches built by the Moorish craftsmen who stayed on to work for the Christians after the Reconquest” (Rough Guide). But the huge monastery had been mostly destroyed apart from the remnants of a belfry and a gateway. There were a couple of other twelfth century churches (San Tirso and San Lorenzo) with tall towers. One thing we did discover by accident, was a hospice above a church full of bunk beds, a kitchen and toilet where Pilgrims stayed. We saw four pilgrims leaving the town. They had had an early start because a sign said they had to be out of the hospice by 8am. No rest for the wicked. Sahagun means “town full of all good things” but all the good things had mostly gone.

The large city of Leon lay ahead on the endless flat plain. It was an attractive city with pedestrianised streets full of Saturday morning shoppers. I made the mistake when following the signs to the cathedral to find myself driving down these pedestrianised streets – much to the amusement of Lori - unsure if we could even get out at the other end. The beautiful Gothic cathedral dates from 1255. Its red, gold and yellow stained glass windows set off the glorious architecture. It had a magnificent west façade with a massive rose window and two towers and a detached nave supported by flying buttresses. The central doorway had the Last Judgement carved above with angels weighing souls and casting the damned to hell.

At the Plaza de Santo Domingo was another splendid church with lovely carved entrances. Across from the plaza stood the Casa de Botines, a work by Antoni Gaudi who designed the brilliant Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona. It looked like a grey stone mansion from a Dracula movie yet fit in perfectly with the nearby church.

Leaving Leon, we were running out of time. I was trying to follow the ‘yellow arrows’ of the Camino de Santiago and an impatient woman driver got annoyed with my slowness and roared past honking her horn. Needless-to-say, she got short shrift from me, but I missed the turning to the main A120 road and we ended up going over the mountains following the Pilgrim’s Way crossing its highest point. A narrow twisty road took us up and up. There was virtually no inhabitation but we passed through a couple of beautiful mountain hamlets (one was called El Acebo). We reached the snowline but with the mild winter, there were only pockets of snow.

The Pilgrims Way wound around the road and Lori read from the ‘Spanish Steps’ book which she had throughout the journey. She told me about the hounds from hell that hung around the village of Foncebadon that had traditionally attacked pilgrims. Sure enough we saw a dog in a field as we passed through but it couldn’t keep up with the car, especially after I had run it over. OK so I made the last part up, but there was a dog there.

At one point, we waited while two hundred sheep crossed the road and then we started to descend down to Ponferrada. We searched for and eventually found the twelfth century turrets and battlements of the Castilo de los Templarios looking over the valley. This former Knights Templar castle was used by Pilgrims as protection against the marauding Moors. There was also a quaint Clock Gateway and Plaza Mayor.

By now it was 3pm and there seemed little chance of reaching Santiago de Compostela - at least by following the traditional Pilgrim’s Way. So we joined the A6 motorway and I put my foot down. Then it began to pour with rain and it was miserable. I seriously doubted that we would make it before darkness fell and it would be a long 300km return trip just to see a Cathedral – albeit, the most famous one in Spain.

We passed Villafranca del Bierzo on a hill, which was traditionally the last town where Pilgrims could turn around before the final climb into Galicia. Those that arrived at the ‘Door of Forgiveness’ at the church of Santiago, could receive the same benefits as at Santiago de Compostela itself. We kept going.

The rain was falling so heavily that we eventually pulled into the town of Lugo which was bypassed by the Pilgrim’s Way. It is the only Spanish town to remain completely enclosed within superb Roman walls and they were very impressive. The downside was that the town had expanded beyond the walls and they had disappeared behind the rows of ugly high rise flats.

After I had filled up with petrol, I made a decision, we would continue to head west and give it a go. Having travelled so far along the Camino de Santiago, it seemed a shame not to see the Holy Grail. So we roared on along the A6 and watched the kilometres disappear behind the dripping windscreen. On the map, it looked as if the quickest route would be the longest – sticking to the motorway to almost A Coruna and then a toll road to Santiago, but I saw a turn off on an A road (634) which knocked some distance off the estimated mileage and it turned out to be a fast road with a little traffic. We zoomed along this and entered Santiago de Compostela and followed signs all the way to the Cathedral and unbelievably parked right outside in the vast expanse of the Plaza de Obradoiro next to a Parador Hotel. We had made it and it was still light. Welcome to the ‘Field of the Star’

“Built in a warm golden granite, Santiago de Compostela is one of the most beautiful of Spanish cities, rivalled in the north only be Leon and Salamanca. The medieval city has been declared in its entirety to be a national monument” (Rough Guide). All roads to Santiago lead to the Cathedral (which is why we found it so easily). It is a “Fantastic Baroque pyramid of granite, flanked by immense bell towers and everywhere adorned with statues of Saint James” (Rough Guide) – but really an Eighteenth Century addition known as the Obradoiro façade.

The main body of the Cathedral is Romanesque because it was rebuilt in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries after the Moorish invasion gave the original building a kicking in 977 (they had probably run out of virgins). I could go into all the imagery of the Cathedral’s façade and entrances but you’d get bored. Inside, it was full of tourists, praying, wandering, getting in the way. The High Altar was really impressive – an ornate gilded affair that sparkled in the light. We climbed the steps behind the High Altar where a Priest handed out cards to any pilgrims who had completed the walk. We only saw one approaching the Cathedral when we left and he was drenched with all the rain. There were lots of side chapels, one containing a statue of St James the Moor Killer on his horse.

After the long drive, we had not been disappointed by Santiago. The cathedral was superb. By the time we walked outside, it was dark and the rain had stopped. We pottered around the Plaza de Obradoiro whose other buildings had been lit up with Xmas lights and then the small squares close to the Cathedral. It would have been nice to check into the plush Parador Hotel and wrack up an incredible credit card bill, but we had a plane to catch the next day and we were over 400 miles away. I’d love to go back and do this city properly. It deserved it.

Once we had back tracked to the A6, we had to make a decision, whether to head east and just follow the road all the way back towards Pamplona, or head northwest to the coast and try a different route home, hoping the road was good enough to get us the airport in time. I always prefer to try a new route so we headed for the coast and it took an absolute age – driving in the rain and dark, along a twisty road with slow traffic.

By the time, we reached the coastal resort of Ribadeo, I was beat. I had been driving for thirteen hours, minus the stops and just needed to pull in for the night. The Rough Guide which we read later, accused Ribadeo of making “a poor introduction to the region”…yet had a “certain crumbling charm”. Whatever. We managed to find a parking space in the centre where there was a line of hotels and pensions and got a lovely room at a pension for 30 Euros. It was 10pm by the time we went looking for food, yet the town had hardly got going. We eventually found a half empty restaurant where we could order fresh calamari and a salad, followed by a huge mixed Paella and a cheap bottle of local wine. It was ironic that the meal cost more than the room, but it was nice to taste some proper Spanish food. It was nice little town and had everything we needed.

The Spanish news on TV reported that there had been an explosion at Madrid Airport. Back in the UK, I later learnt that it had been claimed by ETA, the Basque Separatist movement. At least it was unlikely that they would blow up our departing airport which was in the heart of Basque country.

We were off by 7.30am in the dark. We never did see Ribadeo in daylight. We had eight hours to reach the airport and something like 500km to cover. I was gambling that there would be a decent road along the coast but when we first started, it was another twisty coastal route. Fortunately on an early Sunday morning, the traffic was light and I was able to roar along an empty road to Oveido. Not that we saw any of the coast in the pitch blackness. Then we joined the A66 dual carriageway back to the coast where the E70 opened up into a decent motorway to Santander. It was light by now and I really put my foot down as we passed around the attractive Picos de Europas mountain range where early morning mist hung over the valleys.

We bypassed Santander and by now were confident that we would make the return flight. The E70 continued to Bilbao which we reached by midday. I remembered that the 1997 Guggenheim Museum (not in my old guide book) had been built which looked like an abstract golden ship. So we took a detour through a toll tunnel to have look and it was an amazing structure: like a golden mirage beneath a bridge. Just as strange was the biggest dog in the world outside, covered in flowers (see photos). This turned out to be a huge rock sculpture, buried beneath foliage. I had never seen anything like before.

For the final section, we headed south to Vitoria-Gasteiz over the hills via the 240 – a Sunday driver route, full of cycling teams out for some exercise. There were a couple of police radar traps, but drivers flashed headlights to warn us. It was a very picturesque drive around the forests and through the valleys and with time to spare, we pulled up by the side of a lake for lunch and a chance for me to repack everything before reaching the airport. We had both bought various bits of Spanish pottery which had to be carried as heavy hand luggage (very cheap from the hypermarkets).

Thus we arrived back on time and intact, 1670km after leaving and made the 4pm flight, returning to the UK for New Years Eve. It would have been nice to spend it in Spain (as I had in 1993) but flights on New Years Day were obscenely priced.

Would I do the Camino de Santiago? Yes. Initially, after driving along it, I thought that cycling it would be a better half way between the long walk and our rapid sightseeing by car, but having now written about it, I realise that we really only its highlights and I would like to walk it properly so it could reveal all its secrets slowly. Can someone spare me about 5 weeks off work?

I think I would agree with Tim Moore, that the enjoyment of the pilgrimage is actually the people you meet and company you keep. In a car, we were detached from the process. Finally, I must plug Tim Moore who has written half a dozen entertaining books. I recommend ‘Do not Pass Go’ (History of London using the Monopoly Board), ‘French Revolutions’ (History of Tour de France as he peddles around France) and ‘Continental Drifter’ (driving an old Rolls Royce around the classic Grand Tour of Europe). Oustanding.

Spanish Roadkill...just two frozen cats...

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