9-12th STAGE: HOSPITAL DE LA contended - MONASTERY OF SAMOS / Monastery of Samos - MERCADOIRO / MERCADOR - Casanova / Casanova - Ribadiso CASANOVA - Ribadiso 12th stage Friday, May 14
19 km.
rain continues
We spoke too soon! We go from Hospital
and raining and not stop throughout the day.
Newcomers of the last 100 km: Shoot! there is not one!
The economy today is all the way to taxis and buses. Back
the usual few close friends "Valientes" to enjoy the woods and as we are close to the ocean today is passed between the eucalyptus trees.
I do not know if it is the effect of rain, but today the sense of smell is affected.
trees are tall, elegant stem and in the perfection of their every breath you get a punch in the nose ...
Before Santiago is just slowing down, says our greatest national poet:
"now wait for tomorrow for nostalgia .."
To avoid the mass, which will stop in a city already scented shampoo to six hours per km. 19, we stop. Tiny
the country on the banks of the river the Hospital of the Assumption. He still has the stone
to wash clothes of the pilgrims.
dates from the thirteenth century is the oldest still working on the Way.
Here in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, a Carrillon de los Condes and the Aragonese Way is demonstrated by evidence that he stopped Francis.
secret path I'll make a very explicit way secret.
Exist in the Way of Italy Francesco; course through Assisi, Camaldoli, Verna and the other wonderful places of Umbria, Tuscany and Marche.
Everyone is devoted to Frank makes his way and then come up to St. Jago to find the places that welcomed the feet.
Anyone not devoted to Francis, but moves his life according to humanitarian principles, egalitarian, Communards, libertarians, matriarchal, do exactly the same because many find his fellows.
MERCADOR - CASANOVA 11th stage Thursday, May 13
36 km.
sun !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We go from Hospital to six and a half, we want to be a stage of 30 km and a gift: the dawn!
Galicia and 'land of the Celts ... discover it is lit so the pay of each pilgrim resistance. At 10:00
the noisy procession arrives behind us like yesterday. At each point where the road crosses the state machines are in arrears, fathers or relatives with water bottles, blankets, sunscreen and a thousand other useless precaution, as if their relatives were going or coming from the pole.
E 'beautiful because it is rooted in the people for centuries.
It 's nice to bring high schools Thursday-Friday-Saturday and Sunday their students to discover their history. It 'nice to see the sweethearts holding hands so excited to sleep outside for the first time (if he knew the ward of eighty people that awaits them if she knew him after 20 km walk tonight will fall asleep like a stone) but it's really beautiful. A
Portomarin you see a whole country from the river flooded. A
Palais del Rey we did 30 km. The whole herd will stop here and then we ...
do another 6 km to reach the tiny hospitable Casanova.
Loneliness is a key component of the Way, equivalent to the wonderful communication.
And then finally there is the sun ...
and in fact to arrive ten minutes before it rains and everything that we had so carefully dried and again wet!
secret path
In Galicia, just where each day passes the herd there is a very beautiful stone crucifix.
In his basement is said very clearly how it is camouflaged the Templar fleet after conviction.
MONASTERY SAMOS - MERCADOIRO 10th stage Wednesday, May 12
cloudy / sunny
not raining. Amazed
we enter into our everyday white cloud. Moisture is always 100x100, but it opens below the white green of Galicia ...
Comparisons are with Ireland, with our Umbria, they pass the peasants with carts loaded with fresh manure Celtic as Asterix! The mood has shot up to 300 km in the legs do not feel ready-made, because today we get to the mythical boundary stone which marks the 100 km from Santiago. It 's very important because for the Compostela must make at least the last hundred before Iago.
The Compostela is in effect a 'plenary indulgence of all sins, you had to pay to get it or walk.
So, around 10 in the morning we arrive back in a colorful fleet. Are families, pilgrims last minute with shirts and boots untouched stretches of mud, alternating trips to the Collegiate Pausini Tiziano Ferro.
gives some bewilderment to us "old", but the blue of the sky is open wide important of all. The fauna and flora are impressive: after an hour that the sun shines every bud, peach orchards to explode! Incredible colors of every flower and every fruit tree, screeching with singing birds, hawks are at least seven mail a terrified cat, two cows are taken to goring, and I Leonardo found the body of a ferret ...
It 's a spring that explodes in an afternoon. Among the pilgrims turn
legends: a photo taken with the phone after a pilgrim who Astorga has found his way barred by a wolf!
doubts the wolf but not the cold blood of those who run away he started shooting. But it serves
all for the good humor and hospitality MERCADOR to give the final blow with a breathtaking sunset, the heating unit to dry and good food.
You sleep like dormice.
secret path
Pablito is 20 meters off the road.
Teach everyone to walk to the far post. At
beautiful girls (older than 80 years) and who gives it succeeds. Then it makes you see that the garden has a tree with a branch that looks like the trunk of an elephant. Under the tree there is a plaque which he says nothing. It is actually a tombstone of a 'great importance: it is carved on two sides, one side is a Templar knight, the knight on the back declaring membership in the Order of St John the Beheaded. It means going back at least 1100, when the Order of the oldest, that of St. John, having been pacified Spain, gave the Knights the Order which had just taken the job to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land.
course will not tell you where Pablito.
's just 20 yards ahead of anywhere between Roncesvalles and Burgos ...
HOSPITAL DE Contention - Monastery of Samos 9th stage
Tuesday, May 11
28 km.
rain for seven hours uninterrupted
LOS Italianos MAPA DE LA "as I found out that they call us.
Yesterday at the end stage, after applying three packs on a single radiator, enter a bar for something hot. The whole economy of the countries along the path is based on the pilgrims, not only hotels and restaurants but also pharmacies, taxi drivers, bakeries, bus companies, hardware, bicycle repair services, food and of course bars.
It 'full of pilgrims. We greet "Ola, ola ...". A English pilgrim
a run, be sure not to have heard: "Los Italianos Mapa de la valiente soy, sigh marching siempre" (Italians of the map are brave, they're always doing everything on foot)
At this time, after nine days rain continues, the Hospital are full but the way and 'desert. The protections of the backpacks and pilgrims are now all high-tech, but do not hold up after 4 hours, is all over water and mud below.
There are passages where the trail is a stream, you make human chains on fords, we support both morally and physically.
I have nothing against people who take the bus or taxi, the way everyone does as he wishes, but between us, pilgrims wander, there is a wonderful look of complicity.
Tricastela After the way the machines and finally leaves for 7 km walk in the woods the path of at least 900 years old. We few, only Italian and English ... and we play to the Middle Ages to abduct cows or sheep or even horses to ride to the Monastery.
Right there, after the waterfall, the rain stops and leaves a ray of sunshine.
disappear moodiness, aches, feelings of powerlessness and challenge the party singing! Our repertoire played patriotic loads as "Volare."
I promised to tell the truth and say we won the much-loved by the peoples of Latin singing Laura Pausini ...
Arrivals' s late, tired, but after the shower is still a beautiful moment: The
hospitalier between them speak. In step, the next call hospitalero and the Guardia Civil to tell him how many pilgrims have come in the morning for the mountains and if the hospital arrival responding "okay" in the evening, then they are in place, otherwise they go out looking for them. The majority of cases it turns out that they took steps taxi or local sheep have gone further, but this attests to the immense care for the pilgrims, that these people have. Same applies to indicate if there are vegetarians or coeliacs, people with disabilities or riders ...
Now you say "I have been Italians with the map"
The mission that we're doing is having a success that I had not foreseen: the hospitalier enchant you and make haste to attack the map and want to come all in Italy. The religious bodies appreciate the story of Santa Bona and his very special credentials. On Money Silver rubbed my eyes, called mayors and managers of the museums or the endless local associations of pilgrims who welcome us as if we were the Pope .. and then to all the pilgrims Italian reprimand and business card in his pocket with a solemn obligation to promise.
In reality we are still enjoying it.
The beats are "the Archbishop of Santiago did an edict that will give the Compostela also mosses and lichens that lead the Italians," "give to those who Compostela on foot, horseback or bicycle. But if we come in a canoe ?
and so on ...
romantic tear-jerker moment: Jesus, hospitalero historic Tricastela he remembered my son Guillaume, when it 's been here three years ago, fifteen-year .....
secret path
The Monastery of Samos is very important for the Camino de Santiago, though now very poor guides to make it a variant. Existed since the ninth century, founded by the Benedictines, was considered the Oxford of the first millennium. So, when it was discovered the tomb of the Apostle James in the 970, the infant heir to the throne of Spain and was studying here.
In the din and confusion of the discovery of certainty, was the Prior of Samos who accompanied Alfonso II the Chaste (so called) in the range of Estella, who deciphered the Latin inscription "Jacob APOSTLES REQUIEST PAX" and decreed that the authenticity . He mounted a military camp sopraintese opening of the sarcophagus, found the body intact, a miracle and replaced with military tents a humble chapel because Spain is now spent half his voice to go and see the tomb of the good. Then half
Europe, then the chapel became a Romanesque church, hospitable inns and tents, then it was built a cathedral that is the patrimony of humanity, then they stop for a thousand years of pilgrims arrive from all over the world.
Why?
for Islamic believers is required to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.
For Christians there is the option to go to Santiago, Rome or Jerusalem.
Yes, but why do it? Ask
San Francisco, he made them all three ...
John
