PROLOGUE

I know what you are thinking, but these are not the virgins that first come to mind. No, these are very special ladies, real or imagined, that are representations or different faces of the Virgin Mary, believed by Catholics to be the mother of an incarnated God, which was conceived immaculately.

In Christian theology, the Immaculate Conception is the conception of the Virgin Mary free from original sin by virtue of the merits of her son Jesus. The Catholic Church teaches that God acted upon Mary in the first moment of her conception, keeping her "immaculate".

The Immaculate Conception is commonly confused with the virgin birth of Jesus, the latter being, rather, the doctrine of the Incarnation. While virtually all Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, it is principally Roman Catholics, along with various other Christian denominations, who believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The Virgin Mary has taken many forms throughout history, supposedly appearing differently in many places. These have given rises to many different named virgins representing the same one.

There have been debates about the validity of these premises since medieval times and in this search we will not be trying to ascertain or disprove the theology or the miraculous events associated with the purported apparitions of these virgins. Rather we will be searching places associated with representation of the Virgin and attempt to capture the atmosphere of these locations. Regardless of the validity of the super natural claims, I believe that humans make these places holy just by virtue of their faith and intentions.

The search starts in Lourdes, France, home of Our Lady of Lourdes.  Carolina joins me there and we start a 123-mile long distance walk to St. Jean de Pied de   Port.  This is the French part of the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), also called The Pyrenean Route. It will take us into the foothills of the Pyrenees, and the French Basque country.  The plan is to reach St. Jean de Pied de Port in 7 days, through very harsh and hilly country.

St. Jean de Pied de Port is the city where we started the classical Camino (Camino Frances) back in 2008 (In Search of the Spirit). In this city, we meet Aidilu, my wife, and Carolina returns to the US. I will do one more day of walking by crossing the Pyrenees into Spain. This one part of the Camino we skipped in 2008 due to the difficulty of the trek. Back in 2008, we were doing our first long distance walk and our advisors told us not to risk it. We witnessed from the other side, Roscenvalle, many folks that had to abort the walk as they got hurt during the crossing. However, with 10 years of walking behind me, I now feel comfortable doing this section.

Aidilu, with hopefully a taxi, will meet me in the other side and we will proceed to Pamplonas. From Pamplonas, we go to Toledo, then Madrid and eventually end up in San Sebastian. It is there, that we pick up the Transcabrico Train. This train is a replica of a turn of the century train, which will become our hotel, as we travel from the entire route of the Camino de Santiago in this train. Stopping often in places of interest, we will explore many cities associated with the pilgrimage, famous museums and churches, and other interesting sites. The train supposedly tries to copy the Orient Express service and ambiance.

The train will leave us in La Coruña and from them on, we will travel to Santiago de Compostela and Vigo, before starting our way to Portugal. In Portugal, we will visit Oporto, Fatima and Lisbon.  

Along the way, we will visit two places of Virgin apparitions – Lourdes and Fatima. We will also visit various churches with special attention to the Virgins. We will reacquaint ourselves with the Virgin of the Camino, which I still have on my desk at home.

All in all, this trip will take 45 days and involve three countries and about 30 cities.

The lyrics you will be reading throughout the blog will be coming from Pink Floyd. Somehow, I associate the mysticism related to these places with this music. It will be interesting to return to many of the places, which we passed quickly during our walk of the Camino and explore them now with more time. This trip also marks my first long distance walk outside of Spain, the UK and Ireland.  Since neither Carolina nor I speak French, we may not have any hope of arriving at our destination if we get lost.  Wish us luck and Buen Camino!

Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
Flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone, my senses reelLEARNING TO FLY

Carolina’s notes:

When I saw the name of my Dad’s blog, I was concerned for the kind of trip I had signed up for. But alas, as all European walks, this hailed back to religion and history and we were not attending a bachelor party. Per usual, I know very little about what we are actually doing.  I tend to plan all of my trips meticulously but the ones I take with him, I just come as I am. This is always the greatest to just show up and go.  

However, our starting point, Lourdes, which is also my middle name and godmother/aunt's name, I have known about since as long as I can remember. My rudimentary knowledge has always been that this is home to Catholic springs/baths that work miracles. Though not religious in any sense of the word, I am a believer in miracles. My preferred definition of a miracle is "a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences”. As a result of my own experience, as well as my fellow loved ones trudging the path; I believe. 

And so our journey starts in Lourdes, where we will be visiting the baths and taking a dunk and I guess we will see what happens. And though my philosophy on prayer states one should never make specific requests, just in case, here are a few miracles that I wouldn’t mind: never having to dye my grays and keeping DC at 72 and sunny year round. But who knows, maybe I have sold myself short with that list and better is yet to come. More will be revealed. 

The countdown begins! Our bags are obviously already packed because we are Felipes' and the trail calls! I also must note, it takes a special kinda Dad to weave Catholicism and Pink Floyd in a blog, but here you have it. I look forward to the journey. To a Buen Camino!

INTRANSIT/LOURDES May 15-16, 2019

My trip from Miami to Lourdes included what I considered a very tight connection – 3 hours to clear immigration, go out to another terminal, though security and to the next gate.  I research waiting time in the Paris airport immigration, which ranged from 40 minutes to two hours and averaged at 1 hour. I also found out that my flight from my Miami was late an average of 45 minutes and in the week before was late twice by 4 hours. My level of anxiety and obsession was high and I promised myself never to make connections.  

My flight left a few minutes early and due to the wind (which caused turbulence and kept me awake most of the night) arrived 1 hour early, and the scheduled time of arrival already has been moved 30 minutes. So from the get go, I gained 1.5 hours. I arrived at immigration and there was literally one person and I went through it in 5 minutes. Even after having coffee, I made it to the gate 3 hours early. Noticing that there was an earlier flight, I asked if I could change to it.  After initially saying the flight was fully booked, the nice lady kept calling people and she got me in the earlier flight. I arrived in my hotel in Lourdes 3 hours ahead of schedule and before check in time. But the hotel said my room was ready and I was upgraded courtesy of the hotel to a suite overlooking the Sanctuary and boasting 4 balconies.  What do you think? Are miracles starting to happen already?

Lourdes is the home of the Our Lady of Lourdes, where she supposedly appeared several times in 1858. In one of those times, the Virgin asked Bernadette Soubirous, the 14 year old peasant girl that reported the visions, to drink and wash from a well in the grotto, where the Virgin appeared. This well has become the focal point of the pilgrimages to Lourdes. A variety of healings have been reported as a result of contact with these waters. The waters have been analyzed and contain no unusual characteristics. The healings have been certified by accredited doctors as real.

My guide explained to me that there are 17 certified miracles and hundreds of healings. He defined miracles as an instantaneous healing together with a spiritual connection – a feeling of intense joy, which immediately lead to a rearrangement of the person’s perception, thinking and life.  Healings, on the other hand, are progressive, not instantaneously, unexplained recoveries from illness thought incurable.

He further added that for him there are thousands of miracle occurring, He said that he has seeing joking teenagers go in the grotto and come out weeping from emotions from a profound experience. He believes that is a miracle of faith.

Lourdes is a tourist town in essence, with over 2 million visitors a year. And though is crowded, not overly so, and made the more serene because of the behavior of the tourists or pilgrims. There is an air of solemnity that is hard to describe. I do not mean to say that people are walking around with serious faces, on the contrary, there seems to be a contagious joy, but quieter than in other places. There is also a strong sense of civility, something lost in most places. I have not seen one rude remark, a single act of disrespect, or people trying to cut lines. This is all absent here. Also, unlike most crowded tourist place, there are as many young people here as old people, that is different. Carolina arrives tomorrow and so does the rain. Oh well, may be there are blessed rains!

I can write a whole book and take a million photos, and still it will not do justice to this city.

In my first day here, I noticed that the whole city was full of soldiers, all wearing different uniforms.  At first I thought that Putin had sent an occupation force with Russian soldiers wearing uniforms from different nations to claim deniability in the “liberation” of Lourdes. Alas, I was wrong, my guide told me this is military week. Soldiers from many countries are here as pilgrims. I have seen soldiers from most European nations and many units from Africa. However, there have been no sightings of the US military. Every few hours, a marching band goes around, representing one country or another.  It is all very picturesque. The Irish band has been my favorite so far.

There is a big fort or castle, aptly called the Chateau Fort.  It has been standing since the 11^th Century and has served as a residence, a fortress, a prison and now a museum.  It was at one time the defense point of the Pyrenees, with a 200-soldier garrison at its peak. It is quite impressive and quite a walk to climb to its doors. There is a legend concerning Charlemagne and the fort, which I will include separately from the blog for those interested.

The rest of the points of interest of the city are all related to Bernadette and the apparitions. I will include a separate posting for those of you interested in the story. There are various churches around the town, and of course the grotto. Masses and ceremonies take place throughout the day and early night. The architecture is quite impressive.  Regardless of your belief, the Catholic liturgy, in my thinking is one of the most moving. Something about the use of the Latin language, the songs, the incense and the candles, that when combined make an impression.  The theatrics are fantastic and does alter the senses.

Whether these apparitions took place or not, this place, by the force of the faith of the millions that visit it, have left a marked atmosphere.  My first two days here have been the most peaceful in a long time. I even slept 11 hours on my first night here, something very rare for me, who usually sleep less than 7 hours on a regular basis.

One bad thing to report is that I have not had a decent cup of coffee since landing in France. However, I found the crème brulee and caramel ice creams from the South of France ice creams to be over the top.  

For those of you that know me, let me assure you I have not been converted and remain the always-skeptical self. But perhaps, I am a little less so.

So,
So you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain?WISH YOU WERE HERE

LOURDES/PAU May 17. 2019

Woke up early to the sound of bagpipes as the Canadian army marched under my window at 7 AM.  After breakfast, trying to figure out what to do. I decided to venture into the town of Pau and then go pick Carolina up at the airport. It was raining hard, but in full rain gear I walked to the train station, managed to get a ticket, board and disembark the right train and ended up in the train station in Pau.

Getting out of the station, there were roaring sounds of racing cars. It was the middle of the Pau Grand Prix. For some people, this may be exciting, for me, it was an inconvenience since I could not get to the city center walking, no matter what I tried. I ended up taking a taxi from the train station to the center. The center, which is elevated, had a balcony where you could watch the race, which I did for about 5 minutes.

Pau, although being a considerably larger city than Lourdes, hardly had people in the streets. Some of the real estate, where shops had been in the past, were empty. In fact, there was not much going on. The main attraction was The Villa, a castle like structure. I walked there, but the tour took 2 hours and was in French. I did not have 2 hours if I was to meet Carolina at the airport. So after walking around in pouring rain, I found a decent cup of coffee. Then I headed to the airport, to find the not too happy daughter. I got over 35 texts in the morning from her. Apparently, she did not sleep well in the trip from the US and though she made it with plenty of time, she could not get the earlier flight that I took. She was quite unhappy that things went as planned! I kept texting her that it was win – the planes were on time, she will get to Pau as scheduled. 

As she disembarked, the race began. I had told her before to come a day early, so she can see Lourdes in peace. She did not agree. Now we had less than 4 hours to see what it took me close to two days. Though she claimed she did not sleep the night before, we were up and running. I took her at lighting speed to get our Camino passports. There was confusion and chaos in the office as three different people told us different starting points. There was a lot of talking back and forth about many things, mostly we did not understand and one of the staff even took a photo with us. They could not understand why we were not staying at the hostels and gave us a list of them. Then we told them our next stop, which does not coincide with the stops they had and it got confusing again. Somehow, we got our passports and escaped the madness.

Then, I proceeded to take her to all of the points of interest in record time, while explaining everything I learned from my guide the day before. We rushed through Churches, museums and the entire Sanctuary, in order to have dinner by 7.  After dinner, I thought we were done. I was tired, but our night had just begun.

We went to do our requests to the Virgin. An interesting ceremony, where you actually go to the grotto, put your wishes in a box, run past the spring that the Virgin created, past the image of the Virgin, and out the other way. Supposedly, numerous requests have been granted. And best of all, you could request things for yourself! My list was short but thoughtful. I am very fortunate person, when it comes to wishing for things, it is difficult for me to think of something I want that I do not already have.

Following the request, we promptly went to candle tents across the way, where you light candles. Carolina, lighted a lot of candles for people and after 75 seconds of prayers, we promptly left.  

I thought we were done and was happily walking to the hotel. Then she said she was going to the procession at 9 PM. The procession is a candle light procession with hundreds, if not thousands, of people with lighted candles, singing and praying. There were dozens of wheel chairs being pushed by volunteers, priests and a statue of the Virgin Mary lead the procession. The military was also there, parading. All in all, it was fascinating.

By the way, in our visit to the Basilica, we hit a mass in Spanish, attended with what appeared to be half of the Spanish Civil Guards. I wonder who is keeping order in Spain.

The Grotto was also very active throughout the day with masses or ceremonies in a variety of languages. Every so often, a service is held for a particular country and the soldiers from that country attend and raise their particular flag.

This stay in Lourdes has been a very unique experience. I found myself at times, almost close to tears for no particular reason. At the procession, I almost broke down. It was a very moving experience.

The power of thousands of people praying together, of so many people demonstrating the faith, is quite amazing. It could be the power of the collective; it could be something else. I just do not know. I leave you again with Pink Floyd.

Far away

Across the filed

Tolling the iron bell

Calls the faithful to their knees

To hear the softly spoken magic spell

TIME

CAROLINA’S NOTES

Dulles-Lourdes

My experience arriving in Lourdes was not quite as magical as my father. I never knew how aptly named this blog would be on Day 1. Typically over the past decade, our walks have been in the UK and I fly Virgin. I was truly "In search of Virgin" after Air France. Air France was……well…..French. Upon arrival at Dulles, I was told they opened their new club room just yesterday! Wasn’t I #blessed? I must caveat all this with, I know these are all Cadillac problems, or Bugatti, given my location. The clubroom was the size of a French cafe and jam packed with people even sitting on tables. Fancy, I did not feel. The flight was supposed to board at 5:15 and we didn’t board until 6 and then we sat on the tarmac a full hour after that. 

On Virgin, in business class, they have configured the seats in such a way that you don’t have neighbors. A+ for minimizing human interaction especially on a plane. On Air France business, I had a seatmate and he was French, as were all the staff on the plane. I don’t know why this came as a surprise to me as it was a flight to Paris on Air France but I missed the Brits. I began my routine, start a movIe before takeoff, eat, and try and get some sleep. Guess what most of the movies and shows were from? France! I found a movie in English, Crazy Rich Asians, a romantic comedy in which I still cried cause I cry at every movie ever made. And the food was….French…foie gras…foie no gracias, especially on a plane. 

We managed to make up time in flight and I booked it to try to recreate my Dad’s success catching the 10:55 am to Pau. I landed at 7:45 am. I had plenty of time but still ran for it. The 10:55 am flight was oversold. I had to wait till 1 pm. My Dad should have shipped me some of that Lourdes water prior to my trip for some luck.

I landed in Pau and made it to Lourdes by 4. It was cold and rainy and I hadn’t slept but I was determined to see the city. I got the efficient 3 hour tour from my Dad and we saw all the various important churches (at least 4), all the places the young girl who saw the apparition lived, stayed for a part of mass with the Spanish army, went and got our Pilgrim’s passport from the Camino office, shopped for various gifts, and walked the whole city. My Dad and I say “Jesus” a lot in exasperation. This is an issue here as people turn and expect us to follow it up with a prayer, which is not our intent. 

We made it back to the hotel for our 7 pm dinner and contemplated our next move. I insisted on going to see the procession at 9 pm and possibly going to the grotto and dropping off our written “intentions/prayers” as I thought everyone would be at the procession.  My Dad was very wary of this plan, but it ended up being a good one. We headed out in the cold drizzle and saw the procession start with hundreds of people holding candles and singing in the beautiful square. It really is quite moving and has a definite feeling to it- maybe connectedness - regardless of your specific belief or non-belief. We skirted over to the grotto and it was pretty empty! Usually those lines are deep. We dropped our intention, walked around to where the Virgin Mary appeared and promptly vacated. Then we filled up some mini bottles of holy water so I can give them to people who need it for some healing! I was exhausted but did not sleep at all as every military band played loudly outside my window and then got drunk and screamed all night. It lasted until 4 am.

LOURDES/LOURDES TO BETHARRAM – 10 Trail Miles – May 18, 2019

After a short sleep night, due to the bands parading around until late at night, we ended up getting up very early and were the first at breakfast. We also had an unexpected gift; right outside the dining room, the American troops arrived! I also saw them at the English mass at the Grotto, a few minutes later. So the US was represented after at all.

Carolina decided to do the bath ceremony. I declined. I had this cough for some time and now it is almost under control. I was afraid that instead of healing in the baths, after being washed in cold water, I would end up in the hospital and my trip thus ended. For some reason, I developed a type of asthma now that I am older. I had the same thing when I was a child and then it disappeared at 15, just to return to annoy me now. They say you return to your childhood as you get older, and this is proven true to me.

Today was my 69^th birthday. I never thought I would make it this long. I consider every day an unmerited gift.  As birthdays go, this was one of the best. I spent most of it doing what I like – walking.

While Carolina waited for her bath, I had 3 hours for myself. I started by going to the Basilica, now that it was quiet, and just sitting there for quite a while. After some time, it started to fill with Italians, including the Italian army. I decided to leave. I walked over the grounds of the Sanctuary, found the underground church that I could not find yesterday and I wanted to show Carolina. It holds 22,000 and is earthquake proofed.  Then walked around town finding our lunch. Then I returned to a quiet place where I could observe the mass in the grotto from a distance. 

Somewhere in the morning, I ran across a battalion of what looked like Cossacks or Russian soldiers, but they turned out to be from Croatia.

Carolina eventually emerged from the baths, holier now. We proceeded to touch Saint Peter’s feet, also a custom, see the underground church and to the Camino!

It felt good being back in the Camino again.  Our walk took us through mainly country roads, mostly next to a river. It was an easy walk, but the signs were difficult to spot and we ended up off course and having to go back once. We lost about 28 minutes doing that. 

After about 4 hours, we were close to our destination. However, the main attraction in this area is a very large and expansive cave expanding for many miles. We decided to see them before proceeding to the hotel. Having paid the tickets, and now been inside this place, the guide explained it will take about 90 minutes for the tour and we were to walk about 2 miles, and descend 2,400 feet, take a boat ride and a train back to the surface.  We were not prepared for that and wanted to escape, but it was too late. The explanations were in French, but they replayed them in Spanish for us and also the guide took us aside every once in a while to let us know what he said. After the first 20 minutes, we told him it was not necessary for us to hear anything, and he left us alone.  

Surfacing this cave, which would make a great place to ride out the Apocalypse, we headed to the hotel, very tired. I ended up walking a total of 16 miles today. 

Exhausted, we entered the hotel, where we have been treated like royalty by the kind lady that runs it.  The hotel is nice and she agreed to leave us some breakfast items so that we can leave early tomorrow.

If I go insane, please don’t put your wires in my brain

If I were the moon, I’d be cool

If I were a book, I would bend

US AND THEM

CAROLINA’S NOTES

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! Got up early and had breakfast in the hotel. The sacred baths opened at 9 and it was 7:20. My Dad had decided he was going to pass since it was 45 degrees and the baths are freezing. I had two strong opposing forces inside: I really, really hate the cold but how could I go to Lourdes and not go to miracle baths! I decided after breakfast, I would walk over and see how crazy the line was and just make the call on the spot. I made it there at 7:30. There are 5 extremely long benches (around 50 to a bench) and I sat on the 3rd bench about halfway. I had 3.5 hours til it would be my turn. I spent the first hour just sitting. The continuous outbreaks of holy songs was nice and peaceful at first but by 10 am when I actually went in, I prayed I’d never have to hear Ave Maria again. Also after awhile of being peaceful and yada yada yada. I got bored and so while the Italians next to me did the rosary, I played Pokémon and was throwing poke balls on my phone. Lourdes is a hot spot for Pokémon, lucky for me. The day was shaping out to be a nice one, partly cloudy but it was still really early and I was worried about the cold water!

When it was finally my turn, they call you in and have these makeshift rooms where you get naked, they do it super discreetly holding this blanket thing and then wrap you in that. Then you go behind another curtain and there is a marble bath/pool fed by the grotto. It has a step down and a Virgin Mary statue at the end of like a pool that is maybe 8 feet long and 2 feet deep with this magic water. They removed the blanket thing and put on a white sheet. They told me to pray or do whatever I needed to do before getting in. So I closed my eyes and said my thing and then I went down on the step and it was freezing and then I stepped down in the pool and it was shockingly ok! I walked to the end, and got in to my neck, and then walked back while nuns said some prayers for me and got out. I came back in the changing room and no miracle had occurred that I was aware of, well I guess one, I wasn’t freezing and I did have a big smile on my face. I’ve never been the burning bush type so maybe there will be a slow burn miracle.

After this, I met up with my Dad and we finally started the Camino! About 30 minutes in, we got lost! There are lots of different way markers and we followed a white/red/white stripe instead of a white/red stripe. Lesson learned and we did not repeat that mistake. The day was originally slated for rain all day but it didn’t! There was sunshine and clouds, which passed quickly. It’s a great feeling to be back on the trail. It’s our first hike in France but all the usual comforts of the trail greeted us: farm animals, churches, graveyards, tiny villages, and the thrill of the signpost. Toward the end of our journey, we had planned to go quickly scope out another grotto. We thought this would be a 15 minute detour.  We ended up at the French super sized Luray Caverns and an hour and a half tour that included 3 more kms of walking, a boat ride, and a train ride. This was all very unexpected and we looked very out of place on this tour in our gear. It was vey cool, but stalactites and stalagmites only need 15 minutes of my time…..We finally completed the last kilometer and made it to the hotel. It is literally in the middle of nowhere. It’s quaint but very nice right off the trail. I am exhausted and content.  Tomorrow we combine both a large elevation gain and one of the highest mileage days. Onward.

BETHARRAM TO ARUDY 17.3 Trail miles – May 19, 2019

After a good night sleep in the quietness of the country side, we woke up around 5:30 AM and started our preparations.  To our surprise, there was a little table set up for us with all kinds of goodies for our breakfast, including a thermos full of very strong coffee, which somehow was hot.  We ate our assorted breakfast and started our walk at 6:30 AM.

It was supposed to be raining, but the rain did not come until we were better than half way through our walk, 4 hours later. It was kind of cold, but once we started walking, we even sweated though we never hit more than 50 F.

We walked through cultivated fields, country roads and assorted terrain. We even walked up a mountain that had the Via Crusis in a very peculiar way. As you went up, each of the stations of the cross was represented in a whole building with statues inside. Though we were not carrying a cross, the climb was steep and we felt like our lives were being taken from us. Eventually, we reached the top to be greeted by a Church with a huge statue of the Resurrection. We did not feel resurrected. This was the first of two big climbs.

Our directions refer a lot to “Calvary”, like “make a left as soon as you reach the Calvary”. We did not know at first what that refers to, but eventually we got it. These are giant crosses representing the crucifixion.  For some reason, there is one every few miles.  

We saw goats, sheep, horses and cows during our walk, and a dog every few feet, thankfully enclosed or chained. It seem that there is a dog for every 1.5 French person.  We also got the familiar smell of manure, which I was missing from our other walks. However, the smell is confined to specific locations and not constant, like many of the walks in the UK. Perhaps, this is because there are fewer sheep.

In the distance, we can see the intimidating Pyrenees. We thought that we would not be getting to them for quite a while. However, the more we walked the closer we got to them. Yes, eventually, we had our second big climb and entered the Pyrenees.  

Although, we went though a variety of villages, we could only find one village, very early on, where they had food. We had our second breakfast there – croissant and very strong coffee again. We got to a town named Bruges, where this restaurant had been advertised in small rocks throughout the Camino. Our plan was to have an early lunch there. That did no happen, as lunch was being served much later, they did offer us our fourth cup of very strong coffee.

With four strong coffees inside of us, we tackled the last climb. It seemed endless and extremely steep. It took us around 2 hours of climbing to get to a street, where we separated from the Camino to get to our hotel – another 45 minute walk.

We reached the hotel at exactly 2 PM, full of mud and wet. We walked a total of 7 hours, plus we took about 30 minutes of break, includes an unauthorized break by Carolina, while she ate a peach. We climbed over 2,000 feet and walked 17.3 miles, probably a record for us, or so it felt.

Arudy is deep into the Pyrenees. Our hotel manager did not speak a word of English or Spanish. Carolina was starving and would not give up on eating at this time. They rustled up a person from the kitchen that knew rudimentary Spanish that confirmed that there was no place to eat in this city at this time. However, after a long conversation in French between the manager and this person, they said that they would open the kitchen for us and make us an omelet.  Twenty minutes later, we had in front of us the largest omelet I have seen filled with cheese, ham and potatoes and accompanied by a salad. So far, the French have been the most hospitable hosts we have encountered.  The hotel is basic but good and right in the middle of town.

Since I did not take the Lourdes water bath, Carolina got me an Evian bottle full of Lourdes water. As tired as I was, I used it in my shower today to see if it healed me from my numerous aches. My experience was different than hers, I almost died when I threw a bottle of 40F water over my head, I automatically switched the shower to very hot water. I went from freezing to scalding in a few seconds. I came out of the bathroom expecting that she will sing me an Ave Maria. She did not and I had to sing it myself. I feel much better now, so it must have worked.

There’s someone in my head but it’s not me

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear

You shout and no one seems t hear

And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes

I’ll see you in the dark side of the moon

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

CAROLINA’S NOTES

We had a long 17 mile day ahead of us and so left at 6:30 am. I am writing this post walk and I am tired! I love hiking these trails because 40% of the time I am preoccupied with way finding, 35% of the time I am observing how beautiful it is, 25% of the time I feel like I am dying and coaxing myself forward, and 5% of the time I am thinking about myself. What can I remember in my exhaustion? Based on the weather app, I anticipated that we would have rain all day, but we made it 4.5 hours before we got drenched for the next 3 hours. 

Today was very cool because the first half took us through many hamlets and villages and we were able to have a second breakfast and four coffees. At the fourth coffee spot, we were hoping to have lunch but we arrived to early and were not willing to wait. The third restaurant we stopped at had many, many advertisements along the path on rocks everywhere. See photos attached. It was brilliant and free. Talk about organic advertising. #terriblejoke 

The second half of our journey today was forests and mountains. We literally went straight up a small mountain to “get to” the Pyrenees. We saw a lot more animals: cows, horses, chickens, sheep, big fat slugs and even a dead porcupine. The last few hours were tough, we climbed a lot and it rained a lot but we made it and that feels good.

At the beginning of the trip, people could speak a word or two in English and we mostly communicated in Spanish. At this point in our journey, no one speaks any words in English and we have now entered into broken Spanish. My father now speaks to them in “French” by saying “Le” and a word in Spanish with a French accent. Somehow along with miming, it kind of works. Tomorrow is another long day so we  explored the 3 possible places to get food in the tiny village for breakfast. There was 1 restaurant with the following hours: 12-2 and 7:30 pm-9. And 2 bakeries: 6:30-7:30 am and 4-6 and 6:30-9am. How can I work those hours? 

ARUDY TO OLORON SAINTE MARIE – 16 Trail Miles – May 20, 2019

Sometimes the best laid plans do not work. The forecast, the night before, anticipated no rain. The two boulangeries were supposed to be open at 6:30 AM. There was supposedly a restaurant or coffee shop in a town 2 miles into our walk.

We did not wait for the breakfast at 7:15 AM in the hotel, and left at 6:30 AM. We went to both boulangeries and there was not even a sign that it will be open any time soon. With our hopes up, we raced to the town where supposedly there was a restaurant. Carolina was clocking serious speed with the anticipation of coffee and croissants. I had a very hard time to keeping up with her.  All through this, the rain was constant and it would stay that way until 11:00 AM. It was not heavy rains, but constant light rain. Carolina assured me it was not going to rain, but a voice within me told me to dress with all my rain gear, which I did. 

Through open fields and a few hamlets, we reached the town of Buzy. To reach the supposedly grocery store and restaurant, we had to leave the trail and venture in the town for 10 minutes. We did that only to find that the grocery store and restaurant was nothing more than a boulangerie that sold a few items like candy bars and cokes, besides bread.  At least we got some bread. We asked one of the customers where we could get coffee and he told us with his fingers, since we were communicating in my self made style French, it was many kilometers away. Incredibly, he volunteered to take us in his car, which we declined.

The rest of the day saw us walking through many country roads, next to agricultural farms, into parks and even some hamlets. We did not see too many animals today. To our left, the menacing Pyrenees accompanied us. To our right, we were a significant part of the time near the River Ossau, an impressive raging river.

In the town of Ogeu les Bains, we found a restaurant that posted its time as open, but there was no one near the place.  Another customer that was perplexed why it was not open, told us to go to the Church, if we needed to use a bathroom. The bathrooms were actually across the Church, and we used them despite, a big hose maintaining the doors open. We took turns guarding the door, which was totally unnecessary, since no human beings were spotted in the town.  The Church, a 16^th Century building, was open and Carolina entered it, lit a candle and did some weird stuff.  The Church was appropriately dedicated to the Virgin. So we found another Virgin to add to our collection.

Through what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached a bridge called ‘The Devil’s Bridge, and of course, the devil threw me off and I got one of my feet wet.

We reached our destination at 1:30 PM, having walked 16 miles and ascending probably 500 feet.

When we reached the town, we did not bother to go to the hotel, but found a restaurant right away, where we had an excellent meal. Finally, Carolina got her meal.

Olereon is the largest town we will visit in this walk.  There are even kids in this town.  It has supermarkets and 32 restaurants, most of them closed on account that today is Monday. This is not a typo, most restaurants do not open on Monday in rural France.  Our hotel is very old, but we got a very spacious room, close to the supermarket and the plaza, where nothing happens.

Despite things not working according to plan, we had a very successful and beautiful day.

If I were a swan, I ‘d be gone

If I were a train, I’d be late

And if I were a good man, I’d talk with you more often that I do

If I were to sleep, I could dream

IF

CAROLINA’S NOTES

We got up promptly at 5:30 am, had some coffee, which my dad was very proud about as he should be, as it was hot and delicious. He obtained boiling water the night before using a note that looked like a ransom letter he translated online in french; the manager probably thought we were robbing the place as he slid it over to her.  We stepped out at 6:20 am and went to the first bakery at 6:30 am, nothing. Then we went to the second bakery and not open. You would think that if you only had to be open 2-3 hours a day, you could make it for those hours! We headed out because my research showed there would be a stop in about 7.5 km. 

The forecast had called for a minimal chance of rain. The forecast was wrong. Within 30 minutes, it was sprinkling and did so straight until 11 am. I would like a dry day, maybe tomorrow. I went extremely fast for the first 7.5 km (our day was to be 26 k,) because I wanted my breakfast.  When we finally made it to whatever the village was, we found that the store sold croissants and bread and no coffee. I was disappointed but still bought and ate a lot of bread. Today’s terrain was extraordinarily varied as far as scenery.  It was a long day with a lot of walking but luckily not huge elevation gains; more undulating. We walked on country roads, up and down hillsides, through forests, adjacent to field full of ferns, farmland, next to a river, across various rivers, through a few hamlets. We covered a lot of distance and a lot of sights with the Pyrenes as the backdrop. 

I was determined to make it to Oloron, which would be an actual city to have a hot lunch. My father wanted to stop and eat the snacks. I gave him a small ration and told him we must move on for hot lunch! So we walked and walked, a lot more. It was quite slippery and muddy and my pole was very much appreciated as I would have wiped out many times without it. Toward the end I was pretty exhausted but this great thing happened as we neared Oloron. The sun came out and it smelled like chocolate. Paradise found. The chocolate smell is AMAZING. Turns out there is a Lynd factory right next to town. I wish I had known this and I would have run here today in order to tour the factory and eat myself into sickness. 

We arrived in town at 1:15 and its a real town! We haven’t been in a real city since we left Lourdes. We ate a hot lasagna for lunch and I had chocolate fondant. It was heavenly. We made it to the hotel and washed some clothes and are hanging it right outside the facade (see photos). Trailer trash Americans at your service. 

OLORON DE SAINT MARIE TO HOSPITALE DE SAINT BLAISE -14.4 Trail Miles, May 21, 2019

We left Oloron at 7;30 AM, one hour later than usual. Traversing the city to find the Cathedral that was our starting point, we reached it and were immediately confused by the signs. There were signs to various caminos and also we did not know which one pointed in the opposite direction that we came in yesterday. Our guide book also neglected to mention a very important specific turn. After much discussion and conferencing, we found the right way.

We walked today through all kinds of terrains, farms, parks and streets, and numerous hamlets. Also, the river joined us at various stages. The smell of this camino is rather nice, like flowers or in the case of Oloron, chocolate.  The sounds are mainly from birds, which are very loud and happy in the morning. Of course, there is barking as we pass the hamlets and all of the dogs tell us “Bon Jour”.  Roosters also join the symphony and my favorite – cow bells.  All of the cows have cow bells and as they move, it sounds like a classical concert.  The temperature today was kind of nice, though the visibility was poor most of the day.

Carolina mentions below the nice lady that gave us coffee. A nice gesture like that makes a big difference to the recipient. As she mentions, we could be the ones doing the nice gesture. Yet, I seldom do, outside of my family and close friends. I intend to change that in the future. It takes so little and it means so much.

Today, I got very close to French soil.  Just when I thought I made it through the hills, I slipped in the flat section.  Luckily, I did not resist the fall and landed easily in the mud. Nothing hurts badly yet, but I know you get to know what hurts in these type of falls, the next day.  The pants I have worn since I left the US were totally messed up to my disappointment. I wanted to walk the entire camino with them.  To set the record straight, I do wear clean pants every day after showering and before going to dinner.

Despite hours of walking, I seem to continue to gain weight. The clothes are not fitting.  I think I have eaten collectively since landing in France, the contents of a boulangerie.  In addition, two or three desserts a day do not help. I have to use restraint going forward, may be.

The town of Hospitale was very busy in the XII Century, but not so much now. Besides the still standing Church, there was a sort of dormitory/hospital for the thousands of pilgrims that went through here on the way to Compostela.  The town, now consists of the Church, the place where we are staying and several buildings. There is a small “gite” , which is like a French hostel very close to our hotel/restaurant. Our hotel, called a guest house, is interesting.  The bathroom door consists of a curtain that gives you very little privacy and the windows have no curtains. Since we have a construction crew working just outside our door, they probably have seen more than they bargained for.

We visited the Church and they gave us an unscheduled light and sound show, with explanations of this UNESCO sight. The Church though simple had a lot of architectural features and it was build by Spaniards, using Moor techniques.

Tomorrow, we cross the imaginary line that separates the Basque country from Bordeaux.  On the way today, I saw a monument of some sort with mention of Spanish insurgents.  In the entrance to the rooms in this guest house (There is no lobby, just sort of passage with a sink.), there is a book about a unified Basque country. 

I am looking forward to Basque country and hoping the menus will change. So far the, menus are dominated by a strange soup and all kinds of duck. I used to love duck, now I am sick of it.  Carolina, mentioned our outing last night to the restaurant. What she failed to mention that most of the menu consisted of meals from parts of the animals we usually do not eat – brains, throat, tongue.

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer

My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air

Across the clouds, I seem my shadow fly

BRAIN DAMAGE

CAROLINA’S NOTES

I found a quintessential French restaurant through extensive research last night in Oloron and so even though we were tired, beaten, and battered; I insisted on going. It was a tiny place and we didn’t have reservations but we arrived before it opened and were promptly seated at 7:30 even though we were not in our finest clothes. As a bonus, it was right next to the large UNESCO World Heritage Cathedral where I could lit a candle. I have lit a lot of candles in the past few days. Dinner was very lovely and we walked back the 1km to the hotel with the smell of the Lindt factory continuing to intoxicate me.

We woke up late! 6:30 am. We still made it down to breakfast promptly at 6:56 and were informed breakfast did not start until 7. We returned 4 minutes later and he was ready. I have never eaten so much bread in my life. I eat croissants and bread all day long. I eat it with fierce abandon. However I may weigh more than less at the end of this journey. Today’s walk had NO rain and eventually became sunny. It was a gloriously needed reprieve from the rain and clouds. The first 2km were twisting and turning through the city of Oloron and finally departing onto a a country road out of town. 

About another 3 kms later, we reached the town of Moumour, in which our book said we needed to see a church but did not mention there was a little shop! Finding a town that has any set of provisions feels like striking gold. When that store is actually open i nothing short of a miracle. The store was closed and so we tried the church and that was also closed. However, as we were trying to B&E various plans, an old French woman came out of the store and offered us coffee. We said oui oui! This store did not sell coffee; it sold various things: newspapers, some fruit, and maybe bread. We sat out at a table and she brought us straight from her kitchen in her cups and all the best wonderful coffee ever and little cookies. We tried to pay her and she insisted we not. Then she went and filled our water bottles. My Dad slipped some money under a cup and we profusely merci’d her. 

I am not going to lie, I expected the French to suck. So far they have been super nice, flexible, accommodating, and gracious.  I think this is also a combination of being in the countryside. City people worldwide usually suck. I am one of them. We forget the decency of saying good morning.  There have been several people along this walk in particular who are so kind that they leave this amazing impassion on me. I must remember that I can be that person to someone else if I just slow down.

We continued on for another 10 km and I was very calm. My father was worried about me. I am not a calm person but I was for a while today. I wasn’t rushing to the next stop because I knew there was nothing in the next town. We didn’t discuss any worldly matters not life’s day to day stuff. We instead just observed our surroundings. 

The last 8 km were the tough ones. Straight up, straight down, straight up, straight down. The issue itself was not the elevation gains and falls but rather the mud. Although our day was clear, it has been raining a lot and so the mud was deep, sloshy, and everywhere. It was slow going trying to navigate, not get your shoe stuck, and not fall. We had gone through the steepest parts and when we were on completely flat ground, my Dad eats it straight into the mud. A part of me was secretly happy because he has been bragging that he has worn the same pants for 7 days in a row and now he would have to change! I verified he had not broken anything and we continued on tired as we were near the end. We reached Hospital (which does not have a hospital) and checked into our interesting room above the restaurant. This town has about 14 inhabitants, 5 houses,  a graveyard, and an old important church. We visited all the sites, enjoyed the sun, and now we wait for dinner. Longue Vie Pain & Chocolat!

HOSPITALE DE SAINT BLAISE TO MAULEON – 13 Trail Miles – May 22, 2019

It was supposedly the easiest day, a 4 or 5 hour walk with only 13 miles to cover, and the second of our easiest days of the walk, before taking the most difficult sections in the last two days.  It turned out to be anything but easy. 

We departed our “guest house” at 7:52 AM, after a breakfast consisting of warm bread, coffee and then, strangely enough, toasted bread.  We were also given a huge bag with all kinds of food including two very, very large sandwiches. We did not understand why, but apparently it was covered by our payment to the agency. I wanted to turn it down, but Carolina insisted we take it. So, we did.

The day was nice, no rain, plenty of sunshine and an ideal temperature.  Almost from the beginning, we started to go straight up. We were to climb today over 1800 feet, and descend about 1,000 feet. Half of the climb was in very muddy terrain, which made it hard to maneuver. The other half was on paved or gravel country roads. Both types of surfaces were VERY inclined. I developed a strange feeling in the back of my left leg, which is still with me tonight. Carolina assures me is nothing but over working the legs and associated muscle adjustment. I believe it is thrombosis and I am going to croak very soon. We will see.

It was exhausting, but at 12:15 PM, we walked into town, with our heads high, expecting marching bands. We did find a very nice square and a lovely center with a church, a castle in good shape at the plaza, and the ruins of a castle/fortification at the top of the mountain that we walked by. After walking some more, for no apparent reason, other than to check the whereabouts of our trail tomorrow, we doubled back to the plaza. We had a huge lunch and Carolina finally got her nutella crepe, which she has been craving since landing in France. (My crepe was chocolate.)

Then we proceeded to go around the town. We visited the Church, where we found some Virgins and Carolina lit, yet another candle. It was an empty Church, so we took some liberty with the photos. We visited the Chateaux in town, again from the outside (It is closed until July). The castle/fortress ruins would have taken some more climbing, so we decided to admire it from the distance.

The people here are Basque and speak Basque, a combination of Spanish and something else. Of course, they also speak French, I think.  So our communicating ability is somewhat limited. The town has many Jai Alai courts, but we did not see anyone playing. All of the signage is in Basque and French.  I never thought that the Basque influence was so established in these parts of France.

Stuffed, we climbed some more to reach our hotel, which is also in top of another hill.  The hotel was a monastery at one point, and it was refurbished in sort of a Holiday Inn fashion.  The Church adjacent to the hotel is closed, so we could only admire it from the outside. It is a nice hotel and our room is well, roomy. It has a statue of the Virgin Mary and another one of St. Joseph and we took corresponding photos with our respective patrons.

All in all a very productive day, but not an easy one. I can wait to see what the next two “difficult days” bring.

Sometimes I get tired of the waiting

Sometimes I get tired of being in here

Is this the way it has always ben?

Could it ever have been different?

A NEW MACHINE

CAROLINA’S NOTES

This morning after an odd but satisfying breakfast of warm French bread and very toasted French bread, we headed out.  Today was hard, as we crossed two mountains but it was sunny, which made me extremely happy. My only disappointment today was fleeting. We were supposed to pass a llama farm and not a single llama crossed my path. Since my Dad beat me to writing and described our day, I will provide random observations. 

Garbure Soup:

For the past four nights but not tonight (THANK YOU VIRGIN MARY and Jesus and whoever else needs to be thanked), we have been served a big ass bowl of Garbure, which is a French soup that is super duper not delicious (ie: gross). My Dad prepaid meals so every night we have no earthly idea what we will get but it’s always a soup, main plate, and dessert. We talk about this awful soup daily and pray we don’t get it. Tonight we lucked out and I happily ate my mushroom soup, which would never be my first choice, but was just fine. 

Pigeons:

People eat pigeons here. I don’t care if it is a delicacy. This also qualifies as disgusting. Luckily we have not been served any pigeons to date.  We have on at least three or four occasions, passed pigeon shooting ranges in the mountains. I have shot clay pigeons, which is great fun.  Seeing little cages next to the range where they put real pigeons to shoot is terrible.

French Bread:

I have eaten more French Bread than I thought humanly possible. They serve it and I eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is always delicious and appropriate.  We always rise early and see the bakers delivering a loaf of bread straight to peoples homes and leaving them on window sills, front doors, etc. I will be inventing Amazon French Bread Du Jour Prime. 

MAULEON TO SAINT JUST IBARRE -15 Miles – May 23,2019

After a surprisingly good breakfast (my standards have been redefined, getting cereal is a good breakfast), which included 3 cups of coffee, we set out on our merry way. The day was sunny and today we saw the most spectacular views of the walk so far. We walked mainly through farms and cow trails and not so many country roads as before. The Pyrenees were magnificent.

We did hit a few villages, including an incredibly beautiful one with a 12^th Century Church, and more importantly an open coffee shop. So I had my fourth cup of coffee.

In Spain most of the important buildings were built in the XVI Century. Here most of the stuff happened in the XII Century, when the country was basically divided into regions. 

Due to a detour (We got lost for a while.), we climbed more than scheduled. In fact, we climbed close to 2,000 feet up and about 1,000 feet down. My objectives were to make it out alive and not to step in cow manure. Both objectives were barely met.

Since Hospitale, we have been seeing walkers for the first time on this walk.  Most of them follow another route, so we do not see them in our trails, but over the last two days, we actually have seen 3 of them, including two Americans!  We have no idea where the other walkers go, but we know they are there, because the guites (Hostels) are full of activity. 

St. Just Ibarre is a four building town. Our guest house has four rooms.  It is not too bad, but if you open the windows, the flies come in and make your life impossible. We have spent most of our afternoon hunting the flies. It is probably the past time of the people that live here and in the surrounding areas, all 227 of them.

Somehow, this very hard day cured the pains in my legs. I feel relatively good, but tired.  I think the excessive coffee drinking and tons of bread have healing effects.

Relax

I’ll need some information first

Just the basic facts

Can you show me where it hurts?

CONFORTABLY NUMB

CAROLINA’S NOTES

We knew it would be a long day but I don’t think we knew how hard and long it would be. By far it was the hardest, most challenging, gorgeous, sunny, and fantastic day. It was my favorite day, but my god, was it a doozy. We set out at 7:32 am after having coffee, lots of croissants and bread, and even cereal. To be honest, I don’t recall much of the day early on, except that we got lost. We missed a way marker as it was covered in bushes that were overgrown and went straight down for about 20 minutes before we reached a farm and realized our error. We had to climb back up and find our way once again. This unscheduled detour costs us 45 minutes and way too much energy.

We made it to Odirap, our next town much later than we had anticipated but there was a little cafe open, which was a wonderful gift and reprieve. We had coffee and a loaf of french bread with fresh butter, which was incredible. After Ordiarp, we basically scaled a mountain. It was steep. The views were amazing. It was a long hard trek up the mountain. We have now started to see other walkers as we get closer to St Jean Pied de Port and many walks converge. Almost all have been French until today when we came across 2 Americans on this mountain in the middle of NOWHERE. It was an older couple that were from Texas. The guy was Mexican American and we discussed how we’ve all been using Spanish to get by. They were very nice and chatty and then we kept going and said we’d see them in the next city. 

After hours of going up forever, it was finally time to go down. This was straight up treacherous. I have been having pains in my right knee and after this, it may just explode. Technically, this was straight down at a sharp angle. I kept checking for the way marking signs thinking this could not possibly be the route but it was. We descended in silence trying not to die for over an hour. When we finally made it to the bottom of the mountain, we sat on a wooden footbridge and ate some more french bread and cookies. Our book indicated that we had about 2.6 kms to go but the sign informed us it was about 4.6km to our final destination. We were not making good time! But we were alive and it was still beautiful out. 

Technology has improved vastly since we first started these walks. We used to buy burner phones in the country where we were in and now our phones just auto switch to international mode.  Usually I talk to the kids at 7:30 am DC time and 1:30 France time once I have arrived to my location. Today in the middle of really nowhere near a river and some cows, I was still able to have our morning call. 

We finally made it after 7 hours of almost constant walking, with a few short breaks to a “guest house” in this tiny village. We collapsed and then showered and of course went to look at the church. Guess who popped out of the window across the street? The Texans! God help me if they try to have dinner with us. I am very antisocial with strangers. I will walk back across that mountain to eat dinner alone.  A wonderful day all in all. The feeling of complete exhaustion is the best! We did end up having dinner with them and their German friend, since we were at the only place serving meals in this town.

SAINT JUST IBARRE TO SAINT JEAN DE PIED DE PORT – 16  miles – May 24, 2019

It is hard to describe last night, but it was not restful. We could not open the windows because of the flies, so we were hot. I am not a very tall person, but my legs went over the bed and every time you moved, it creaked and it felt like you were falling. The pillow was over 7 inches deep and it seemed it was filled with garbage bags as it made sounds when you moved on them. To top it off, we got a call from the states at 1 in the morning.  As a result, we slept probably less than 4 hours.

We departed the guest house at 6:20 AM, but due to directional confusion, joined the Camino at 6:30 PM.  It was raining hard.  Our first hour was long country roads that led to the Gamia Pass. Our guide book suggested that we bypass the Pass, and go around an alternative route. Carolina and I would have none of it! So no sooner than we reached the Gamia, we started climbing, vertically on a very muddy, cow trail, and in the rain.  You tried to climb, but the mud slides you down, and then it accumulates in the shoe, making it very heavy. It was slow and after over an hour, we hit our first summit. I was ready for a break, and we sat in a contraption for the cows to drink water. No sooner did we sit it started to rain very hard and got very cold.  We decided to continue. We went around undulating cow fields for a good while when we encountered a group of cows right on the trail. There was a young bull that did not like our intrusion and appeared ready to charge. We stopped and fortunately in this section there was a way to go around them.

The rain stopped but was on and off the rest of the day.  We thought we were through climbing, but we were to climb two separate mountains and several passes, a total of 3,800 feet climbed and 2,800 feet descent. We met a separate group of cows, which were right on our trail, we herded them along for about a mile, since we could not overtake them and there was no passage on the sides. 

Almost the entire trail today consisted of very rough cow trails. Once out of the pass, we left our route, called GR 78/Vie de Piedmont and joined GR 65 to our destination Saint Jean de Pied de Port.  No sooner we were in GR 65, that scores of pilgrims came into view. Carolina was horrified. Having walked in very quiet trails, seeing only 5 other walkers and only for short periods of time, we were not used to seeing people and were in shock.  We found a coffee place and had a cup before proceeding to our last hour.

We entered Saint Jean de Pied de Port at 12:30 PM, finishing our entire trek.  We entered the city by the famous Port de Saint-Jacques gate that has welcomed pilgrims since the XII Century.  We were tired but elated as we walked the cobblestone street used by the pilgrims.  This was my return to this city after 11 years. 

Much has changed, but more importantly a lot has remained the same. 11 years later, there are more walkers than back then. And now tourists visit here to learn about the pilgrimages. It is a fascinating town, which I always love.

Somehow, many of our things got wet today and my cell phone died. Carolina buried it in a sack of rice and promises me it will resurrect. I have my doubts.

My wife joined us traveling by car from Madrid and we are all now together.

All in all, a great walk, all 102 miles of it, 7 days walking.

Carolina’s Notes

After waking up very early and eating lots of bread for breakfast, we set out with headlamps and left early cause we wanted to get the hell out of the odd guesthouse. My Dad summed up the day pretty well: rain, MUD, lots of climbing and sliding, cow traffic, and more mud. Despite the rain and the mountain climbing, we still somehow hit pretty awesome vistas. We did it! We triumphed and completed the journey! I ate a large lunch and then a crepe less than 2 hours later. I may miss the eating with no abandon as much as the walking.

The last day is always bittersweet. It’s great to have finished your journey but so sad when its over.  My father and I continue to be great walking partners. We operate the same, which makes for smooth travels. Should we drink the dessert sauce out of the cup? Absolutely! Should we explore every church? Why not! Never take short cuts, always leave early, eat when you can, and talk to the animals. 

It is also a great time to spend with my Dad and make new memories and reminisce on old ones. We will never forget or eat again the garbure soup and we are now open to doing another French walk after the people have been so kind. It goes a long way to be a little nice. I helped a Frenchman out today at the Laundromat today and we were speaking Spanish and he asked me where I was from and I said America. He said. “I never would have guessed, you are so nice!”. I almost said, “That’s what we thought about you people!”. But I smiled and wished him a buen camino. 

Oddly enough, I also consider these walks as time spent with my brother, because inevitably we go to a LOT of churches and I light a LOT of candles for him and catch up. As always, this trip was able to give me some perspective, which is hard to do when you are running around like a crazy person in your own life. Another wonderful walk in the books! We’ll keep trudging!

Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?

WISH YOU WERE HERE

SAINT JEAN DE PIED DE PORT – May 25, 2019

Carolina and I woke up around 6:00 AM and decided to let my wife sleep, while we ventured into town half an hour later, trying to find a place to have breakfast away from the hotel.  The night before we had dinner in the hotel, which has a 2 star Michelin rating. I cannot speak for the others, but my food was horrible. I asked for lamb chops and I got a variety of parts from the lamb, such as brains, throat, kidneys, and yes, two small lamb chops (about 4 bites). This variety of small things was swimming in a giant plate. Carolina called it a decomposition, I called an abomination.  The dinner cost as much as our entire costs of the walk, other than hotels.

As we walked the hallowed streets of SJDPDP, we saw bunches of pilgrims making their way to the Camino portion, which is the hardest of the Camino – 17 miles and over 7,000 feet climb and 2,500 feet descend. Carolina scolded the walkers for starting so late on this hard walk.  I concentrated in finding coffee.

We found a place that was serving breakfast – a guesthouse sort of place. We had our now usual breakfast of bread and coffee.  We then walked around continuing to criticize the late (for us) walkers. In reality, we were extremely jealous that we were not walking today. The worst part of the walks is when it is over and your body wants to keep going. It is especially hard if you stay in a city like this full of walkers.

Surprisingly enough, we ran across the Texans in the streets, who were in their way to the train station and to Paris.  We said our good byes, took pictures together and exchanged e-mails. The whole moment was very Camino like.

Since arriving in SJDPDP, Carolina’s mood has gone dark.  So I stayed a few feet away from her while we walked aimlessly the streets of the town.  Eventually, we decided to wake up my wife, who went to breakfast at the hotel where she had breakfast for double the price we paid for both of our breakfasts. She considered it a bad breakfasts consisting of “bread and coffee”, but no croissants. (We at least got croissants!)

The rest of the day, while waiting for the taxi that will take Carolina to the airport at 3:00 PM, we ventured out, every time the rain stopped.  Then ran back to the hotel, to wait for the next reprieve and so on.  Some shopping was done, more food was eaten and we waited the last two hours in Carolina’s bed – some sleeping, some looking at the ceiling, some looking at the rain.  

We did visit the Pilgrim’s Church, where thousands of pilgrims have stopped in the way to the Camino. (It sits besides the Gate to Spain, the official start of the Camino de Compostela (Camino Frances)).  I was in this Church when I started the Camino 11 years ago, in my first long distance walk. I always wanted to come back and I am glad I am here, but is not the same, when you are not going to the Camino. Of course, there was a Virgin Mary in this Church, and Carolina and now my wife both lit candles.

I should mention that at various points during the walk, I felt like some one was following me very close behind.  I turned at various time to see if there was some one and no one was here. I like to think it was my son, Nicholas. I know it is not possible, but it gave me a feeling of security.  Probably, it was the sound of my shell hitting the backpack. 

The sad moment came to say goodbye and we saw Carolina take her taxi to Biarritz for a two-day trip back home.  Though my wife and I continue on for another month in this trip, it is always difficult to break the group as well as to stop walking large amounts of miles. 

I have been waiting all afternoon for the rain to stop to take a walk at least to the side of the river in town, but no such luck so far.

My plan was to walk from SJDPDP to Ronscenvalle, the first stage of the Camino, which I did not do the first time around. Then my wife will pick me up with a taxi and we would proceed on our trip.  However, due to the weather, the fact that I do not have a phone anymore, I thought it wise to cancel the plan and instead ride with my wife to Pamplona tomorrow. I am somewhat disappointed, but sometimes, I need to know my limitations. There were too many things going against the odds of a successful crossing. The peak will have to wait once again for another time.

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall

All I all you’re just another brick in the wall

ANOTHER BRICK ON THE WALL

Some thoughts about the walk

As always, it is really a treat to walk with Carolina. We discuss many things while walking, she is always fun and this is a good time to catch up on many things. Plus, we get to share unique experiences that I always treasure. These walks have become the highlight of my year and I always look forward to them.

We found many virgin representations along the way and regardless of faith (or lack there of) what they represent – compassion and love – are worthy of our consideration.

The Caminos always bring the best out of people. We have been surrounded by kindness and the French turned out to be hospitable, gracious and kind. 

In the Camino, key things play out naturally:

-       Can only plan one day at a time or you get overwhelmed by the instructions.

-       You live in the present, or you fall off a mountain.

-       Live and let live or a random bull will charge you.

PAMPLONA – May 26-29, 2019

Sunday

We woke up around 8 AM and proceeded to have breakfast in a local coffee shop, avoiding the hotel all together.  After gallons of coffee and tons of croissants, we marched back to the hotel packed our bags and waited for our ride, which arrived promptly at 10:30 AM. The ride from SJDPDP to Pamplona was rather interesting. It is the first time I remember being carsick.  The road is through switchbacks. If it took the car 40 minutes to cross the mountain, I believe the 9 hours mentioned as walking the mountain to be understated.

We arrived at Pamplona with still bad weather. Fortunately, our hotel room was ready. We dropped out bags and went exploring the city, which looks fantastic. We had a great lunch and then came back to the hotel for resting.

I booked a guide for the next day for a 10-hour tour of the Kingdom of Navarre.

Monday

Our guide showed up at 9:00 AM, and after a brief stop at a phone repair shop, where my phone was pronounced officially dead, we sped out of the city into the Navarra countryside.  

Our first stop was the Ujue church-fortress, one of the most important and impressive fortification of Navarre. This is situated, as all of the places we will see today, in top of a mountain. A very quaint medieval city surrounds the fortress/church slopping down from the top of the mountain, very small. The church acted as a watchtower and from this strategic location, the guards could see miles to the frontier what their enemies were up to and by means of smoke signal tell the other watchtowers. The enemy was in Aragon, the next country adjacent to Navarra - at times Muslims, who invaded Aragon and at other times, the Aragonians themselves.  Though not associated with any warrior monk order, the monks were soldiers and monks and were ready to defend the fortifications. Thus the Church had the elements of a Church, complete with pews and altar and elements of a fortification, with holes to shoot arrows, throw hot water, and all of the implements of war of the time.   In this Church, we found the first virgin of the day, the Virgin of Ujue.  The legend is that a shepherd spotted a dove that was flying in and out of a hole in a rocky outcrop; on entering the cave he discovered an image of the Virgin and Child and the local people interpreted as a sign from the Virgin to establish a place there, and thus the town of Ujue was born. Ujue means dove in the local dialect. Assorted miracles are attributed to the Virgin.   The remarkable thing of most of what we will see today is that we were basically by ourselves in all of these impressive places. It was like when we use to go places when we were young, no tourist, you are allowed to wander around and actually touch stuff and so on.

Then we headed to the town of Olite, home of the most known castle of these areas and more visited that Ujue, but still not with many people in this day. The castle look like Cinderella’s castle and I think Disney took the idea from this castle. It was constructed in the 1400’s. Throughout the years, it was burned, purposely taken apart in pieces, but finally reconstructed in the early 1900’s. As such, there are original pieces and the newer pieces, which make the bulk of the construction. It is in very good shape and ready for me to move in, as soon as they install heaters.  It is a very large castle, almost impossible to describe. It even has a tower that was the children’s playroom, hanging gardens, 300 rooms and 20 “bathrooms” of sorts.  From the castle, you could spot Ujue and receive their signals, while they could send signals to the next watchtower.  A very ingenious communication network.  It apparently did not work, when the Kingdom of Castile, invaded them and destroyed the castle.

Our guide was very knowledgeable of the history and the buildings and he went in extreme details each of the carvings in doors, walls, etc. I had more information than I could ever retain. They even open a section of the castle just for us to see surviving decorations that were kept on a private room, because people tended to take pieces of it home.

Once again, the pictures do not do justice to this magnificent representation of medieval castle.

Of course, there was a Church adjacent to the castle with the appropriate Virgin for the region, but no legends associated with it.  Also interesting, parts of the castle was turned into a Parador Hotel, where we had an excellent meal, with king like service.

Having stuffed ourselves to the point of bursting, we headed to the Castle of Javier, home of St. Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuit order. He is the patron of Navarra and Asia . An interesting man, who after co-founding the Jesuits, traveled extensively through Africa. India and Asia, before dying in China at the age of 46.  The castle was built in the X Century as a watchtower and you clearly see from there the first Aragon city. It was reinforced periodically through the XIV Century and after the war with Castile it was reduced to a residence. Eventually, a distant relative of Xavier rebuilt it to its splendor in honor of the Jesuits, with one big modification, the creation of a Church, where there was a tower. The property was passed though time to the Jesuits, who in 2006, built massive complexes around the castle, including hotels, convention centers and various utilitarian buildings used by the order for meetings and conventions. These are hardly used and there were very few tourists in the area beside ourselves. The Church center includes yet another Virgin – the Virgin of Javier. No miracles have been attributed to this virgin, but the Jesuits felt they needed a Marian focus on these premises.  One interesting factor is that every year, there is a Javierian Procession from all over Navarra that congregates eventually outside the castle for mass. The folks in the procession walk over 30 miles in one day to reach this destination and I cannot venture to estimate their climb, but is high. Hundreds walk this procession; it is very impressive and still happens today.

Our last, and for me the best stop, was the Monastery of Leyre, known to have been built before the IX Century. This is an impressive building, again in top of the mountain serving as a watchtower. To imagine that the people actually built something as complex as this, on a mountain, 1,000 years ago is overwhelming. There is an spirit of calmness around the place, unsurpassed by any of the other stops. There are tunnels, rooms, chapels, the main church and even a hotel and gift shop.  The views are excellent and the wind was persistent this afternoon.  At 7 PM, we were seated at the Church, and 20 monks walked in and started the vesper service, which consisted of Gregorian Chants.  We stayed there and reluctantly left after 10 minutes, as not to have our guide leave us. It was a magical way to end the tour. By the way, there is a legend related to this monastery as well. St. Virila, an Abbot of the Monastery, in its early days, was pondering the meaning of eternity and wondered to a tree, where he heard a bird and stayed in ecstasy.  300 years later, he appeared at the doors of the monastery claiming to be the abbot, when they checked his credentials, the monks found that he indeed was the abbot, who went missing and presumed dead, 300 years ago. They claimed it was a miracle. (The moral of the story: eternity can be a flash when in the presence of the divine.) Just in case, though I was tired, I did not take a nap.

But the day did not end there. We reached Pamplonas at about 8 PM and went to eat something. I ended up with churros and a very different and thick chocolate, which was delicious, a perfect way to end the day.

Tuesday

After a good night sleep, we started a walk around the fortifications (followed the wall) and pass many interesting places, including a park full of different birds – chickens, pheasants, guineas, ducks, turkeys – and some deer. Then we headed to the main plaza and did some shopping before proceeding to the hotel to prepare for lunch. 

Lunch was another Michelin rated restaurant, and though not as bad as the one in SJDPDP, it was also not outstanding for the princely prices.  From now on, we will stay away from Michelin related restaurants. Probably, it has nothing to do with the restaurants, and more with my taste for simpler/homemade type of fare.

After some walking, I retired to the room very early for the night.

Wednesday

I decided that I do the Camino portion inside Pamplona this morning. So right after breakfast, I went to the official entrance and started walking following the signs, which eventually took me to the other side of the city.  My goal was to reach the bottom of the Mount of Forgiveness, but it was too far away. So after 50 minutes, having reached the outskirts of the city, I reluctantly turned back.  It was good walking again, following signs and seeing other walkers around me. I must be addicted to Caminos.  Somehow, my gloom mood of yesterday, went away from this short exercise. The weather helped as well. The sun was out after many days of visiting just for a few minutes during the day.  This portion of the Camino, I sort of did 11 years ago. We got lost and entered the city in the wrong place, our hotel was out of the trail, so I am not quite sure we did the official trail until today.  

We returned to have a great lunch at this place that was recommended by our guide. It did not disappoint.

In the afternoon, we visited the last of the watchtower towns, Sanguesa, a medieval town, about a 45-minute drive from the city.  Like the towns, we visited previously; this one had all of the requirements – castles and church/forts. It actually had 4 churches and a convent/church and 6 palaces.  The town also lied next to the River Aragon and a XII Century bridge.  All of the buildings were closed, but we roamed around and saw all of them from the outside, took pictures, read the many placards explaining what we were seeing, and walked the medieval streets.  The town’s population is less than 6,000, yet it has many churches and monuments, not bad.

Returning to the hotel, we almost immediately came out and visited the White Horse. After looking for a horse for almost 10 minutes, we found out the White Horse is a palazzo, with no horses anywhere.  Since this place was next to the Pamplona Cathedral, we walked there to find out that it was a museum. We bought tickets and found ourselves in a giant church/museum. It had flat screen tv’s, lights, excavations, complete depictions of the history of Navarra, and of course the cathedral just like it was supposed to be.  I believe the cathedral still works as a Church once in a while because I saw a schedule for confessions.  The Church itself was magnificent. From one of its doors, you also reached the cloisters, and the excavations revealed streets from the first century.  The Church was built around the I Century and has been destroyed and re-built at various times, with the latest incarnation dating to the XV Century. The cloister is from the XIII Century, and there are various works of art throughout the museum.  In addition, it had a collection of Virgin Mary statues. We would have like to spend more time there, but we needed to do a few things before turning in for the night and prepare for our trip tomorrow.

We walked directly were the bulls run, not to find bulls, but a churro restaurant.  I ate a fair amount of churros and a hot chocolate, which is hard to describe, because I never tasted anything like it. It is kind of thick, but the flavor is not overwhelming.  The churros were also outstanding – thin ones and a thick one full of some type of custard pudding.  

Then I proceeded to the House of Turron. I had to have another turron ice cream before leaving this place.  

Stuffed we marched to the hotel. There is a picture of a picture in the photos, which show what I am becoming.

A good day, and I enjoyed the sun.

Tomorrow onward to Toledo.

Us and them

And after all we’re only ordinary men

Me and, you

US AND THEM

PAMPLONA AND THE RUNNING OF THE BULLS

Pamplona became famous due to the author Hemingway, who wrote about the running of the bulls. He portrayed it as one of the must do events for man everywhere.  As a result, the event attracts about 2 million people a year.

The “encerrado”, as the Spanish call it, takes place from July 7-14 and the celebrations start on July 6. It is supposedly a celebration of Saint Fermin. There is no connection between bulls and San Fermin, but it actually was related to medieval fairs that brought animals into the town for bartering and trade, which eventually led to bullfights. Somehow, the Saint festivities and the bulls got mixed up and the bull stuff started. The dates were changed from September to July to accommodate the tourist season, and there you have it.

The event consists of having the bulls sleep in a field behind the walls of the town (a high zone) and then making then run through about a mile of closed in streets terminating the run at the bull fighting ring.  The bulls are released and herded at high speed, while humans are released ahead of them and the bulls chase. Actually, the bulls are terrified and are forced to run the streets, they really could not care much about the humans, except that they are in the way. There is a corner, where the bulls have to make a 90-degree turn and the poor things collapse and fall, allowing the humans more space.  Once they reach the ring, the bulls are then herded inside and are killed over the week in bullfighting matches.  

I walked this bull mile. It is sort of a via crucis for bulls.  It is hard to sympathize with the humans who subject these beasts to such treatment. The last guy that got killed in the bull run was an American. Apparently, he felt and tried to get up and a bull went through him. The rule is if you fall, you stay down and supposedly the bulls will run around you. I will not be testing this theory.

For the younger folks that may not have heard of Hemingway, who thought all this was so virile, was notoriously drunk all over the world. He was so happy that he shot himself at the age of 62.  Many people in my generation and the generation before me idolized him and imitate his beer and looks. You can still find some of them in Key West. I am not one of them, I think he was full of bull.

TOLEDO – May 30 – June 1, 2019

The trip from Pamplona to Toledo was about 5 hours and was mostly uneventful.  The country side changed a variety of times as we passed through three Spanish provinces. As we got closer to Toledo, the land was drier and the climate got much warmer. The temperature in Toledo will reach 93F during our stay. Except very late at night, it was hot! After wishing for warmer weather, we now wish for the colder weather, which shows we never know what we really want!

Our hotel is located in top of a mountain facing the town of Toledo and with the most incredible views of the city.  Tour buses stop here to admire the view. However, it is away from the city and either requires a 45-minute down hill walk or a taxi ride to get to it. Our room is in a corner and enjoys a privileged location, having sweeping vistas of the city from our living room and our bedroom. Thankfully, the room is air conditioned, Unfortunately, I have a cold as a result of the change from hot to cold.

Our first day, we opted to stay in the hotel and rest from the trip. I also caught up on various business related items.

We decided to walk to town the next day and as advertised it took 45-minutes to the gate of the city and another 15 minutes to the center plaza. The city is completely walled with various gates around it. It is the largest medieval city in the world, a UNESCO site.  One interesting thing about the city, is that you are always lost. Armed with two maps and a gps, I managed to be lost every 10 minutes or so.  

Having reached the center of town, we joined a group for a 2-hour walking tour. (The tour guide explained that every one got lost in the city because is like a labyrinths. I did not feel as bad about my navigation skills.) The tour passed us through the many sites of the city and our guide regaled us (and a group of 20 people) with stories and legends. 

Toledo is known as the Imperial City for having been the main venue of the court of Charles V, and the city of three cultures for the influences of Jews, Christians and Muslims in its history. The Arabs ran and controlled the city for over 300 years.  The city is a fascinating combination of Muslim, Medieval and even Jewish architecture. At one point, it had more synagogues (10) than any other Western city.  Curiously, the remaining synagogues (2) look like mesquites because Arabs built them.  

There are many impressive buildings in the city and each of them have stories and legends. As you walk through the cobblestone medieval streets, you get a sense of medieval life.  There are churches in every corner and at one point, there were 40 convents in the city and a bunch of monasteries.  Religion played a big role in the life of the inhabitants and to a certain extent continues its influence today.

The city is protected by a river and fortified walls. The gates to the wall are impressive themselves as buildings. It is no wonder that lots of films are shot in Toledo.

On our second day, we decided to take a guided tour of the 5 most significant monuments, other than the Cathedral, which we will tour on our own. The monuments we visited with the guide were:

Christ of Light Mesquite:  a mesquite, later converted to a chapel, that dates back to the X Century and it still has the original architecture and gardens. This is a rather small building, but an interesting one. It is next to a gate of the city, so it is presumed to be a place of prayer in your way in or out of the city, thus the limited size. The odd name will be explained in the legend section.

Jesuit Church: an elaborate Baroque Church that was built in the 1700’s, nothing extraordinary compared to some of the others. The Jesuits built it, but used it very few years, as they were kicked out by a King. There is a Virgin of Fatima image here, done by the same artist that did the one in Fatima. Apparently, he did two and one ended up here.

San Juan de los Reyes Monastery: a XV Century splendid set of buildings, ordered to be constructed by Queen Isabel la Catolica, as a future mausoleum. After it was built, she decided her burial place to be in Granada and it was converted into a monastery.  It is a mix of gothic and mudejar architecture.

Saint Mary the White Synagogue: XIII Century synagogue, that looks like a mesquite, due to the fact the builders were Arabs.  It was later converted to a Catholic Church and a copy of the White Virgin Mary in the cathedral was made and the church named after her.

Saint Tome Church: a XIV Century Church, which claim to fame is that It has a huge painting made by El Greco – The burial of Lord Orgaz.  More on this in the legend section.

Our visit to the Cathedral was the highlight of the time in Toledo. The lot originally housed a giant mesquite and after the Reconquista, they decided to cover every inch of ground with the Cathedral. It is huge.  I think it will take days to really see it all.  The works of art in the Cathedral are impressive. The Church, now also a Museum, houses a painting collection which include El Greco, Caravaggio, Titian, Tristan and Goya among others.  The entire building and the adjacent monastery is a work of art and is very hard to image how they could have built something as elaborate as this in the XV Century.  Looking to the ceiling, you see the giant figures representing various biblical stories and you had to believe that the artisans of that time were much better than anything we have today.  

We finished our last full day in Toledo by walking to the main gate – Puerta de la Bisagra. There we had turron ice cream and took a taxi to the hotel.

We spent two full days in Toledo and felt it was not enough. There were quite a few things that we did not have time to visit. It is a very unique city and hopefully we can return to it. Naturally, it is also a tourist city, so there are people around, but not in mass as in other cities. You still can get around and there are no lines to contend with.

As explained above, yet this is another place, where the Virgin Mary played an important role.

I can't think of anything to say, except..

I think it’s marvelous! Ha Ha Ha!

BRAIN DAMAGE 

Legends of Toledo

There are too many legends to write them here, so I picked a few that I believe are interesting and match the places we visited.

Christ of Light: There are various legends attributed to a crucifix that was in this Church. One of them goes like this; Arabs are about to invade city; faithful hide the crucifix inside the wall of the church with a lighted lamp and seal it. 200 years later, the city is liberated from the Arabs and as the King passes next to the mesquite, his horse kneels down. The King investigates and find a hollowed wall partition, the partition is open and they find the crucifix and the lamp still lighted after 200 years.

Lord Orgaz: This gentleman, who ruled these parts during medieval times, was considered a very kind, generous ruler. During his burial, two saints come down from heaven and put him on the ground, while two angels carry his soul to the Virgin, who welcomes him and sends him on his way to Christ.

St. Ildephons:  This saint apparently defended the virgin nature of Mary at all costs.  As a reward, the Virgin appeared to him and gave him a mantle.  This story is depicted throughout the churches of Toledo in paints and engravings.

Toledan Nights: Arab King treats subjects in Toledo real bad. Nobles kill him at night. The father of the slain King replaces him as King of Toledo and initially treats every one real good, and lowers taxes. Everyone is happy. After two years, he asks the noble families to come to the palace for celebrations, the servants stay outside, while nobles go inside where their throats are cut. The servants stay all night waiting and so the Toledan Night was born as a night where you do not sleep well or things do not go well.

MADRID – June 2-5, 2019

Madrid is the third largest city of the European Union with over 6.5 million inhabitants. It is a city full of history and impressive monuments and buildings. It will be impossible to cover any of this so I will keep my comments to my own impressions.

This stop was made for my wife. She wanted to visit museums.  Madrid has more than its share. I would rather skip big cities, but if I am to go to one, this probably will be my best bet.

My impressions will cover the museums, the city, nightlife and health, in this case my own. 

The museums

Aidilu chose 3 museums, one for each day of our stay – El Prado, Thyssen and Sofia.  I accompanied her through two of these. 

We had a guide for our first 2 hours in El Prado, the second largest museum in the world, second only to The Louvre. It covers miles and miles of terrain and has 5,000 exhibits. Lucky for me, the guide covered the history of Spain through the paintings.  After she left us, I guided Aidilu to the other pieces she wanted to see. 

We visited The Thyssen the next day and I served once again as the map reader/guide.

My only impression of the visits is that since they did not have the internet back in the day, a large portion of the paintings were a form of pornography. They got away for it by painting some type of angel or mythical god next to the representation of the nude bodies. I am not judging, I am just observing.

The city

I have been to Madrid about 5 times since 1970.  I found it dirtier than before. In addition, there were many homeless around, with very elaborate beddings next to businesses or houses. Still not nearly as bad as San Francisco, but still worse than my last visit.  

Madrid does retain its Spanish culture and people in the capital. Practically, everywhere we went, the restaurants, shops and businesses were staffed by Spaniards. The city has not attained the uniformity that is now seeing in most large cities around the world, it has still a unique personality.

While waiting for Aidilu for over an hour outside a department store, I got to observe a fascinating process. In most crowded streets, there are street peddlers that show their merchandise in the floor over a cloth with strings that if pulled converted the cloth into a sac, within a second and one could run with it.  These peddlers were all from Africa. Each peddler specialized in one product and usually sold its product in front of a brick and mortar selling the real thing. For example, the Nike peddler put his shoes in front of the Nike store and sold them at fraction of what they were selling them inside.  Of course, the peddling is illegal. So the police comes around every 20 minutes announcing itself with a distinctive horn sound. The peddlers pull the strings and remove the merchandise and themselves to the side and wait until the police van is no more than 10 feet to reestablish themselves.  This went on every 20 minutes. Apparently, the police does not arrest them because the judges throw out the cases. Since these folks are undocumented, it is impossible to establish a crime record under Spanish law, and they cannot be deported also because of the law.  Finally, it is more expensive to keep them in jail than to let them be out.  They are very passive and do not present a threat, so that is not an issue. So the only thing the police can do is disrupt their business every 20 minutes or so. Again, I am just observing, no comments.

The night life

Since this is the largest city we will visit in this trip, we had activities for each night.

The first night we went to a Flamenco tablao. This is where a group consisting of a guitar player, a singer and various dancers perform Flamenco music. I love it and the artists we saw that night were incredibly talented. The place is typically very crowded with tables in top of each other. You dine while the show goes on. Our table consisting of no more than 10 inches in circumference managed to hold two big plates, a breadbasket and our water glasses, but barely. My seat was almost in top of the person in the next table, which happened to be a Japanese lady by herself. Due to the proximity, she asked me in very broken English to order a meal for her. Since I read somewhere that Japanese kill whales and eat their parts, I figured that octopus was the closest thing to a whale and ordered that for her. She told me she enjoyed it, so I was right. The meal was surprisingly good as well as the show.

The second night we ventured to see a play, actually a drama. It was even more depressing than I imagined by reading the advertising. The funny part is that I did not even knew that it finished until people got up and started applauding.  Outside the theater, every one was talking how great the play was. I must be intellectually challenged, because though the acting was good, the plot was awful and had no redeeming values. It was a play about injustices, I guess.

Sometimes, the best things in life are unplanned. We had a real treat on the third night. I wanted to go the Teatro Real de Madrid and see anything.  So I walked there first on our first day in Madrid and bought the only show they had during the three nights we were there. It was called Rapykeando.  My interest in going to the theater there is that this is a very unique venue. Founded in 1850, this is one of those rare operating theaters that have been kept in great condition, while respecting its original décor. It was first an Opera House, before becoming a theater.  Due to the name of the show, Rapykeando, Aidilu thought it was a rap/flamenco singer, which immediately worried me.  Were we in for a surprise?

We entered the theater through a side door, and walked through beautiful salons before entering a hall where drinks were served.  This hall made you feel you were indeed in the 1800’s and you could even seat in the furniture!  After that, we were guided to a large dance hall that has been fitted with tables full of Spanish charcuterie.  We were in a table near the stage, which we shared with a Spanish woman and her German friend. The place was full, almost totally by Spaniards. It happened that this show is part of a Flamenco Festival. Rapykeando, we learned, is one of the most talented Flamenco dancers in the country. Not only that, but he invited another older famous Flamenco dancers to perform with him. The band was also composed of the best musicians in the Flamenco genre and this time included a percussionist, a wind instrument musician, the guitarist and two singers. This was the best Flamenco show I have ever seen and we could not believe our luck.

Health

I contracted a cold while in Toledo, which got worse every day since arriving in Madrid. My cough did not stop and I had trouble breathing.  I travel with a medical kit that other than surgery can handle most illness. So I diagnosed myself with a case of a bad cold with asthma aggravated by the pollen levels and the pollution in Madrid.  I prescribed myself and prednisone pack to ease the breathing, antihistamines for the allergies, antibiotics to offset the effect of the prednisone on the immune system and just in case I had pneumonia. However, I was missing something for the cough and went to a local pharmacy that could offer only one remedy for cough that did not contain alcohol. Basically, it was honey. I do not know if it did anything, but it tastes real good. All of this supplemented with Hall’s tablets for emergencies.

I did not have a fever, not did I loose my appetite, which ruled out pneumonia in theory. In fact, I am eating way too much. In Spain, all of the restaurants have these “menu” options. For a fixed price, you get to pick among 4 or 5 things for each of three plates. The portions are immense. Being economically minded, I always order the “menu” since it is the best priced option. However, I end up eating three very large plates and can’t hardly breathe when I leave the table. So, no, I did not loose my appetite.

I felt almost well in my last day in Madrid, but got worse again the next day. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, since this cold is very contagious, I probably have provoked a pandemonium in Madrid due my continuous cough in public places.

I feel like Tom Petty that with three broken ribs decided to continue his concert tour by taking lots of meds. Luckily, none of my meds are narcotics, so I should fare better than he did.

Madrid is still one of the best capitals of the worlds.  It maintains its culture and vibrancy, while displaying old world charm.

SAN SEBASTIAN June 6-7, 2019

Once again, we took the 5-hour ride to Basque Country and ended in San Sebastian around mid-day.  San Sebastian is an interesting town. Dating back to the first century (Roman time), it was chartered in 1181.  As most European cities, it changed hands many times. It is a beach town, and people from all over the world, flock here for the beach and to see and be seen.  I do not understand the beach thing, since the water is freezing year round. Even outside the water, it is not hot. We are in June (summer) and the temperature fluctuates between 50-70F. We walked around with a sweater.

Our hotel is one of the monuments of this city.  Built at the turn of the century, it has been kept impeccable and it is decorated like what you will think as a palace.  It is in the middle of everything and has great views.

Our first afternoon was spent in eating and doing two critical errands.  The city boasts the most Michelin starred restaurants of any area in Europe. We did not wanted to be near any of them. But as luck will have it, we ended up in a very high-end restaurant and they seem to change the traditional recipes to something called progressive – not good.  

Aidilu was in a mission to find a pedicure/manicure. There are dozens of those, but they were all full. Through the hotel, she finally found a place called, funny enough, La Cubana. Yes, it was owned and partially staffed by Cubans. We are everywhere.

While she was taking care of nails, I decided to go to the doctor, as I was not feeling any better, but worse. I asked the hotel if they could get me a doctor and they recommended me to go to La Casa de Socorro (The Help House). Now, I remember from my childhood in Cuba, that this was a place you did not want to go even if you were dying.  But after the hotel staff insisting that I go there, I acquiesce, too sick to argue too much.

I walked into this modest but clean place and went to the only receptionist there and told her that I needed to see a doctor, as I was sick.  She asked me what was wrong with me and she asked me for the equivalent of the social security card for Spaniards. I told her I was a foreigner just passing by and she said - do you have any form of identification? I gave it my driver’s license and that was it. No questionnaires, forms, liability releases and genealogy trees were requested like in the US. I sat down and within 3 minutes; a doctor called out my name from his office. I walked in explained my problem and within 2 more minutes was given a shot, and put on an aerosol machine. 20 minutes later, the doctor came to check that I used the aerosol solution and gave me some instructions as to what to do, but did not think I needed any prescription drugs beyond what has been done. Exactly 30 minutes from entering this place, I paid my bill of $110 and was out of there. That is incredible to me.  The treatment helped but I am not out of the woods yet and I am afraid that this condition will travel with me for the rest of the trip. It is all very annoying. By the way, the doctor confirmed that I had no pneumonia, just a bad case of asthma.

On our second day, I woke up early and planned a tour of the city on foot. It is a very small city in terms of historical sites and it was easy to plan. I learned something about each of the sights from the internet so that I could impress Aidilu with my knowledge. In top of that, conveniently, they have these plaques at the site, which give you the history of the place of interest and other relevant data. We saw about 11 sites out of 17 possible ones - a castle, 3 churches, and assorted buildings with historical pasts. To get to the castle, we had to climb 63 floors up a mountain. It was worth it, incredible views waited for us at the top, plus the castle was interesting.  It had a variety of things inside related to the city. Higher up, there was an immense statue of Christ, which rivals the one in Rio de Janeiro. I guess they were popular back in the mid 1900’s.

There was a church devoted to a virgin – Santa Maria del Coro. And once again, miracles happened related to this statue. The statue was placed originally at the back of the church. A monk that really loved the statue took it and put it under his robes, but as he tried to leave the church, he was paralyzed by supernatural powers and was caught. After the incident, the Virgin was moved to the main altar. She also protected the city from destruction, when lighting hit a powder warehouse in 1688. Since then, there is a procession every year to thank her and she became the patron saint of the city in 1940. 

We fared much better in our second meal in the city.  We have been told that we needed to try Pintxos in Basque country. However, we have been reluctant to do that, since most of the places that sell it are crowded and people stand up and eat these things while consuming massive amounts of beer.  In our second day, we found one of these places and it actually had tables available.  We were very pleasantly surprised. There were over 100 varieties of Pintxos, which are basically the Basque “tapas” or small plates.  The experience was good at a fraction of the meal cost the day before.

I also decided to write my doctor on my condition, who promptly called me. He said I had a virus and recommended that I get some additional medications for the symptoms.  I told him I did not think I could get a prescription. Just for trying, I walked into a pharmacy and asked for these medications, which normally with insurance in the US cost me about $120. I told the lady of my predicament and she promptly gave me the medications, no prescription/no papers, and proceeded to charge me $5. I love this country!

Despite my condition, I enjoyed San Sebastian.  So far, the Spaniards we have run across in this trip, have been generous, hospitable and helpful.  There is still here a sense of civility, which reminds me of an era gone by in most places, but strangely enough is still vibrant in Spain. 

Witness the man who raves at the wall

Making the shape of his question to heaven

Wether the sun will fall in the evening

Will he remember the reason for giving

SET THE CONTROLS OF THE HEART OF THE SUN

 EL TRANCANTABRiCO TRAIN  - June 8-14, 2019

This is the portion of the trip that we reside in a train. This train is part of a line of tourist trains started in 1983 that strives to recreate the train trips of the “belle époque” in the 1920’s. This one in particular was commissioned and put in service in 2011. It was created, by taking wagons from 1929 and, completely refurbishing it with modern conveniences, but with the look and feel of the 1920’s.

It consists of 7 sleep wagons (2 suites to each wagon), 2 dining room wagons, a bar wagon, and 3 utility wagons plus the engine.  The train houses 28 passengers and is always fully booked and has a staff that varies between 7-10 people. In our case, because two suites were occupied by singles, there is only 26 people.  We have 9 Mexicans, 10 US, but 6 of them like us are from Cuban origins and one is Mexican American, 3 Spaniards (one of those actually lives in Mexico), 2 Brazilians, 2 Australians, and even one Argentine. The Mexicans and the Brazilians can speak perfect English, so there has been no problem in communicating among the group. All the tour explanations are given in English and Spanish. 

For the longest time, I thought this was a very congenial group. Unlike other group events, due to space limitations, and the fact you spent the whole time with the group, we got to know every one. I thought every one was getting along fabulous, but I was wrong.  Our Brazilian friends, specially the husband, was very addicted to cigarettes and in top of that was coughing almost as much as I did.  Comments were made, and the situation got tense. Later on, the Brazilian was accused of opening the wagon doors and smoking out. Through a series of confrontations, in my opinion totally unnecessary, the expedition leader decided to eject the Brazilians from the train, 2 nights before reaching the destination. This was done, completely out of proportion, with police presence, but while most of the group was on an tour, which they made longer to keep people away. I happened to stay that day and witness the whole thing. It was all very sad, and I believe, completely unnecessary.  I felt very sorry for every one involved.  After that the situation calmed down. We started also to stay away from the people that we thought started the controversy.

I tried to cough less, lest I also be accused of carrying a deadly disease and being evicted by the Spanish equivalent of the CDC. 

The best tour bus I have ever seen accompanies the train and serves as our transportation in each of the stops. This bus is amazing with wood floors, bathroom and leather seats and much bigger than needed for the 26 of us.

The suites are small (150 square feet, all inclusive with bathroom and furniture), but manageable if you have very limited suitcases. That is not our case, but we have some how manage to make it livable as long as only one person walks at a time. The suite does have a bedroom, small living room and a full bathroom and even a small refrigerator.

The attention to detail was outstanding. The meals are worthy of any high-end restaurants. We eat in the train some meals in seats that resemble what you see in the movies of days gone by. The tables are set two by two by windows.  However, 3 dinners and 3 lunches are done outside in top of the line restaurants, including Michelin rated ones.  (By the way, these Michelin rated restaurant were actually quite good and broke the trend so far.)

We have a local tour guide at each stop and even the tickets for the museums or activities is included. They have taken the concept of all included to an extreme. You pay for nothing, other than your fare. 

Along the route, the cuisine, including breakfast, matches the Region we are traveling through, which includes Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia. Even the music in the bus changes to expose us to local music. It is like a total immersion in Spanish culture.

We are following the Way of St. James – Coast Camino.  The train does not travel at night and it usually travels at lunch and breakfast – about 2 hours each time. The countryside is the entertainment for those meals. 

At night, the crew also performs at the bar. We cannot make it that late, so can not comment on it. Lunch here is at 2:00 PM and dinner at 9:00 PM, so I am completely out of my schedule. Every meal is a 2-hour affair, so you spend 6 hours at a table.

There are many stops along the way. Typically, we tour in two places per day – one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  For the most part, we only do the morning trip and skip the afternoon trip, which starts around 6:30 PM. We go to some of the dinners and skip others.

Bilbao

The city is somewhat interesting, maintaining part of its old town, a church/fortress and of course, the Guggenheim Museum.  We spent some time at the museum. The building itself is the attraction, there is nothing worth seeing inside the museum, according to the poll of all my fellow travelers and my own opinion. It is a magnificent building and I guess they have to fill it with something.

Bilbao has its own Patron Virgin – The Virgin of Begoña.  She is attributed with saving many sailors at sea, and the sailors upon coming to Bilbao under a bridge, sang a song to her called “El Salve”. The bridge to this day is called El Salve. Her statue is present at The Basilica of Begoña.

We did learn two rather interesting things today. People who lived in the Villas, which is the name towns were given in the Middle Ages, were called Villains.  Because they were not very kind to the people outside the walls of the Villa, who were much poorer, the word villain came about as what we know it today.  I could make a comment about people from the big cities, but will refrain.

The second interesting thing had to do with my son, Nicholas. We ran into a church dedicated to St. Nicholas, but this is a different St. Nicholas than Santa Claus. He is the patron saint of fisherman, sailors and the sea. Nicholas was totally connected to the sea. He loved being in boats and fishing was his fashion. Coincidence?

Santander

Nothing much to report on Santander. They lost the old city in a fire. The town is like a beach town for the people of Madrid and other parts of Spain. It looks like the lesser cousin of San Sebastian.  There is some palace in the place, which is now a university. 

Unquerra/Potes/Santo Toribio de Lieban

Our train stop was Unquerra, but all we saw of the town was the train station. We boarded our bus and through a series of switchbacks entered the mountains. Our first stop was the Church/Monastery/Gift Shop at Santo Toribio de Lieban.  The story goes that Santo Toribio went to the Holy Land as a pilgrim during the time of the Crusades. Once he reached there, he slowly grew into the confidence of the powers that be. When it was apparent that Jerusalem could be lost to the Muslim forces, Santo Toribio was given the task of taking the a piece of the Holy Cross to Rome.  He reached and stayed in Rome and became a good friend of the Pope, who allowed him to take the largest piece of the true cross ever found to his hometown, Astorga. However, when the Moors invaded Spain, it was believed the True Cross was not safe there. So, the remains of the Saint, along with the True Cross, were carried to this VI Century, mostly unknown monastery, nestled in the middle of the mountains for safekeeping. It has remained there ever since. A number of legends from the middle ages have been attributed to the cross. Once it was to be transported by a donkey, who was very gentle, yet he refused to move, even after a beating. A second time, it was out in the open, and a storm came out of nowhere and the sky lighted up with a cross followed by a river overflow that made a cross sign as well.  In this age, however, a piece of the cross was given for analysis to the scientific community and they determined that the wood indeed came from the Middle East at the time of Christ. So it was possible that indeed , this was a piece of the True Cross.

The cross is sheltered in a gold crucifix type container. A monk came and blessed us with the cross (I am happy to report that no one turn to ash.) and then we were given the opportunity to kiss or touch the cross. I elected touching since I was afraid I will spread the deadly virus I am carrying.

Our net stop was the town of Potes, just a little further down the mountain. This was my favorite stop so far. A totally medieval town encrusted in the mountains, it offers great views of the mountain from all sides, a river coming through it and a variety of restaurants, and shops and, today, a full market on the square. It helped the weather was great. 

Both these sites are part of the Camino de la Costa and from here, you could appreciate why this Camino is considered the hardest of all Caminos.

We were taken to a Spa for lunch and for those who wanted to get into the healing natural waters.  We elected a walk by the river instead, before a 5-course lunch.  I made an error in counting the plates and thought the 3^rdplate was the main and ate all – it was huge. Then they showed up with the real main plate.  It seems like every day they add a course to the meal. These are not small portions you see in tasting menus. Each of the courses could be considered a full lunch.

After such a heavy meal, we decided to skip dinner and the next outing tonight.

Santillana del Mar

Despite its name, the city is not in the sea, but was given the name due that the province has a sea and shares the same name, and to distinguish it with another Spanish city also called Santillana.

This city came in the tourist maps, because of the discovery of the Altamira caves in the XIX Century.  The caves proved that prehistoric humus was capable of creating art, with dimensions, textures, and colors.  The movie Finding Altamira portraits the problems the discoverer faced proving that this was a fact.  The painting found in the most interior part of the cave were painted from our ancestors dating back more than 15,000 years. Using lights and crawling into the space in the cave, these folks painted very nice animals and symbols in the roof of the cave. The locals compare the art to that of the Sistine Chapel. I think this statement is a little off the mark, but what do I know.  

The original cave had to be shut down to the public due to the fact that the human contact was corroding the painting and damaging the structure. The structure was completely sealed when found, except for a small hole.  The Spaniards and locals, not wanting to loose the thousands of tourists, recreated an exact replica of the cave and its contents and housed in a museum. Even the replicas are maintained in control by only allowing groups of limited number at a time with a guide.  They claim the reproduction faithfully reproduces the original thing, which is located a few feet from the museum.

The paintings are impressive for people that had to paint under the conditions they were and with the materials available.  I was particularly struck by the horses. I did not know there were horses 15,000 years ago. Upon research, there appears to have been 4 types of horse families, which included the rhinoceros, back on those days. Of these, only two survived, what we now call a horse and the rhinoceros.  From there, I have reasoned that the unicorns really existed at one time. They were a mix of the rhino and the horse, or a rhino on a diet.  I believe that most myths are based in some fact. So, yes, there were unicorns, you heard it first here.

The town of Santillana is also lovely. Mostly a tourist town consisting of two main streets converging in the central plaza, making it a sort of a Y.  It is all medieval with the buildings ranging from XII-XVII Century. These buildings are still operating housing stores, people, hotels, restaurants. The town of course has a Church and a monastery from the XVI Century that is quite beautiful. The town has a Parador and a 5-star hotel, which was the residence of the Marques de Santillana.

This is also a stop on the Camino de Santiago.

From Santillana, we took a 2-hour train ride to Ribadesella. This was a quite unique ride. To the left of the train, the coast line and greenery greeted you, to the right, you had a chain of very high mountains and farm land. This was quite a scenic ride, which I quite enjoyed it.

We skipped the tour of Ribadesella, but joined the group at another Michelin rated restaurant. The dinner was frankly one of the best I have ever had. It helped that the place was beautiful and the host and staff were extremely attentive. 

Picos de Europa (Peaks of Europe)

We drove to a very mountainous area, named Peaks of Europe, passing through splendid countryside. The peaks are a mountain chain, unlike anything I seen before. It is like mountains on top of mountains, including snow capped ones.  The bus gained about 7,000 feet in altitude, to get us to a lake. However, since the total altitude even there was below 9,000, there was full vegetation and dense tree forests covered the sides of the mountains.  We shared the road with cows and sheep, and some how we made it up and down through this very narrow paved road.  

It was cold so we did not stick around the lake long. Instead they took us to this cabin, where we were presented with all kinds of food goodies and a cider demonstration and tasting.  Cider is the local drink here and I guess every one brews it and they go through an elaborate manner of serving it.  

Covadonga

We drove down the mountain to the Basilica of Covadonga.  This is like a mini-Lourdes. The complex, which is encrusted in a mountain, contains a grotto (waterfall included) with the Virgin of Covadonga, shops, restaurants, a very large Basilica (Church) and numerous tunnels, passageways, statues and fountains. It is very nice.

It is said that close to here, Don Pelayo, a nobleman turned back the Moors invasion and the “Reconquista” (Recovery of Spain from the Moors) started. The Virgin of Covadonga was thought to be instrumental in this key defeat of the Muslim army. Don Pelayo, subsequently, became the first King of Asturia.

Supposedly, in one of the fountains, if you threw a coin and asked for a wish, the wish will be granted. Since we were not sure, which one it was, we dropped coins in any body of water we saw. We also lighted candles for extra measure.

There is also a fountain that if you touch the water and are single, you will be married within a year. There were not many near this fountain.

The Church was quite nice and they were giving Mass when we entered it. We did make the line through the grotto to see the Virgin. This particular Virgin brought memories from my childhood. For some reason, I remember being very young and been told about her.

We even got time for a café con leche, before moving on.  This was another magical place, with a strong influence from a representation of the Virgin Mary.

Cangas de Onis

Down from Covadonga, Cangas is nestled and represents another medieval type town. The main claim to fame of this town is its Roman Bridge, which of course we walked.  

Oviedo

Oviedo is the capital of Asturia and its second largest city, with a population of about 200,000.  It has new construction, but it conserves the old section, dating back to medieval times. 

Our first stop was the Church of San Julian de los Prados. A small church, which was full of significance. Built for the use of King Alfonso II, grandkid of Don Pelao, it was part of a palatial complex, with the Church being the only surviving part. The Church was built between 701 and 842, so is probably one of the oldest churches in existence. They found behind the plaster placed in the walls during the black plague, original paintings, which are considered a World Heritage Site, the Church itself is a World Heritage Site. So San Julian has two World Heritage designations.  The paintings are quite simple and do not portray any figures or animals. Both the building and the actual Church are quite lovely. By the way, you can only get in there by appointment and the entrance is limited to a few people at a time. Lastly, this Church survived many wars, including the Civil War, when it found itself in the line of fire of opposing forces.

Then we went to the Old City of Oviedo. We had a tour focusing on the main buildings and squares, mostly dating to the XVI-XVII Century.  The first Camino de Santiago was started in Oviedo.  As a result of wars, many relics from saints were brought to Oviedo for custody in the Cathedral.  The King at a time, heard that the bones of St. James, were in Santiago. He decided to do a pilgrimage there, and the whole of the St. James Way started. Surprisingly, the route he took, which is now called The Primitive Way, is one of the least used routes. It goes from Oviedo to Santiago, but does not correspond to the Coastal Way, which we are doing by train. Most of the routes to Santiago do offer a detour to visit Oviedo, because in ancient time, it was the place the other relics were. 

There are Camino signs all over the city, indicating both the Coastal and the Primitive Way. So many Caminos, so few years to do them!!

Candas

Last night was one of the rare occurrences when we actually traveled by rail for about 3 hours, mainly during dinnertime. We traveled from Oviedo to the city of Candas. We drove briefly through the city in the morning, which was basically a fishing village in the old times and now is a port town. We never got off the bus.

Aviles

The real jewel of this stop was Aviles, another medieval city. As usual, this was one picturesque city with the main square, its churches, monasteries.. It has a well-preserved historic old town, which was at one time within the walled city.  It is home to a ghost named Walter, who happened to be British and settle in a nobleman’s house in the main square, which is now a Music Conservatory.  Since Walter really liked music, he is quite happy there.

Another important fact is that Aviles was home of Pedro Menendez, El Adelantado, a Spanish Admiral, who founded Saint Augustine, Florida. Saint Augustine is the oldest city in the US and he did a very good job, because is still a great tourist destination. There are statues of him, restaurants named after him throughout the city.   

Aviles is part of the coastal Camino and it would be a great stop for the pilgrims.

Gijon

Gijon is the largest city in the Asturias, with a population of over 280,000. It has a well preserved historic center, think medieval. It has a walking mall street, with all of the usual stores. We were given lots of free time in Gijon, which has not happened often, and we roamed around the streets. Gijon is part a port, part a fishing village and of course, part a medieval city.

We had lunch at a Parador there and as usual, it did not disappoint.

Ribadeo

Though the train stop the night before was at Luarca, we elected not to go on the tour, which allowed us to witness the events before described.  In the morning, we past by it, and there was not much to it. The other passengers confirmed as much.

Our first stop in the way to Ribadeo was the Cathedrals of the Beach. These are caves and rock formations made over thousands of year by the sea. The arches resemble those of the cathedrals, hence the name. We walked through beautiful cliffs and even got down to the beach and into some of the caves.

We marched on to the city center of Ribadeo, which is another medieval city with its Cathedral, monastery, old gates, and old section.  At this point, the medieval cities are intermingling in my brain.

Viveiro

Viveiro is yet another medieval city, but it had two interesting things.  One was a cloistered nun monastery. These nuns, believed to be 13 in number, do not have contact with the outside world. They even hear Mass from the back of the Church on a section with bars, resembling a jail.

Outside the monastery, there is a replica of the Virgin of Lourdes, complete with Grotto and everything. However, here they hang next to the Virgin, wax figures of the whole person, or something like an arm, an ear, and so on. It is believed that if you leave the wax figure of whatever, or anything, miraculous things occur. There were many rosaries hung as well.  Our guide explained that this was a combination of pagan and Christian rituals.  She explained that they had in the regions Bruxas, which are up to no good- witches, and Meigas, like magicians, which are like healers and also do some spells for the good, if you will.

The second interesting thing is the Holy Week festivities, which are quite a pageant, and is called “la Rapa das Bestas de Candaoso”, which sounds the more ominous.   People dress up in customs, and there is all kinds of mayhem and spectacle, I took a photo with a representation of how the people dress up.

Train Thoughts

In our last night of the train, we had a complete dinner with lobster, octopus, fish stew (not combined, but one plate of each, including a whole lobster) and a local dessert. It was followed by a going away party, which we did not attend.

The next day, the group was moving on to Santiago with the bus, while we stayed behind. Together with the crew, we got to say good by to every one after breakfast and saw them part. Our car picked us up minutes later to take us to A Coruña.

The train trip exceeded my expectations in every respect. I liked the small group of people, the attention to detail of the crew, the pace of the tours and the type of tours provided. The food was excellent as well. 

We made some good friends along the way.

I loved moving from town to town on a train. It does not have the hassles of getting on/off ships, or airports, and I just like trains.

We saw places it would have never occurred to me or that I would even consider, given the logistics. Having a train and a bus at your disposal is really fantastic.

I was sick for a good portion of the trip and I still enjoyed it a lot. 

The weather could have been better, but we were told that the weather in Coastal Spain is just like we had, all of the time. And, if you do not mind rain here and there, it was not that bad.

I also loved the cultural aspects of this part of Spain and every one we met were kind and nice.

Train living is not for every one. If you like space, this is not the ideal mode of vacationing. Also, in a route like this, being able to eat fish and liking it, it is almost a requisite. Most of the meals had elements of seafood.  You are given a set menu every meal. They accommodate some people from time to time, but they are limited as to what they can do outside the set menu, even when in restaurants.

From a value given, I do not think this particular train deal can be beaten.

My conclusion is that I loved the experience in many levels and I am glad I did it.

And as expected, there were many tales of the Virgin along the way of Santiago in the Train Transcantabrico.

GALICIA – June 15-20

A CORUNA 

I was hesitant to add 2 days to the trip to visit A Coruña. I never heard much about it and it is not on the way to anything. Except that this is the start of The English Way (another Camino de Santiago trek).  Initially, the plan was for friends of ours to come up with us in the train and then to come here and finish the English Way, since we started this Way in Ireland last year.  Our friends had to cancel, so we decided not to do the walk by ourselves. So I was tempted to cancel the stop all together.

 A Coruña turned out to be a jewel of a stop. A city dating back to Roman time, when the lighthouse was build in the first century, the city has a combination of incredible vistas, ocean and old town. Plus most of the city is surrounded by a promenade by the sea, which constantly gives you reasons to stop and admire.

The lighthouse named the Hercules Tower is amazing and if you climb all 335 steps, you get a very good view of the harbor and surrounding areas.  The name comes from a legend by a King of Spain, whereby Hercules defeated a giant that was terrifying the population here, and then cut his head and told the people to built a tower on top of the head.  Started by Romans and modified over the centuries, it has been in continuous operation since its beginning.

Next to our hotel is the San Anton Castle, built in the XVI Century, as a defensive fortress, but turned into a prison from the XVIII Century until 1960.  It is well conserved and is rumored to be the defensive outpost when Francis Drake tried to invade the city. During that invasion, the locals joined the army, in fighting the British and were successful. Maria Pita was fighting next to her husband; when he died from bullets from the enemy. She organized a counter attack, and screamed, those with honor follow me.  Though a housewife up to that time, she was instrumental in the fight, and led it to victory. There are plazas, statues and other things around here to celebrate her bravery.

We believe this is the most beautiful city we have seen in the trip so far.

The city is known for a gathering of “gaiteros” (bag pipers) but this does not happen until August. I did manage to find one and took a picture with him. I love gaitas. Galicia is home to one my favorite artists, a gaitero named Carlos Nunez. He is quite amazing.

We did not visit Churches or found many virgins here. However, there is a lot of talk about Bruxas and Maigas.  There is a stone that they sell here called “azabache”. This stone is supposed to protect you from evil eyes and witch spells. In Cuba, every little child had one. Now, I know where it all started it. Here!

I am particularly fond of the food here, since it is very similar to the dishes my mother used to prepare. It is incredible, but I can almost feel my Galician roots, which has been verified by Ancestry.com.

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

We arrived on June 17^th to the Parador de Santiago early on June 17^th, to find that our room was ready. The hotel itself, the oldest hotel in the world, is a destination. Built by Catholic Kings, who after seeing firsthand the deplorable circumstances of the pilgrims in 1499, decide to build it as Hospital Real de Santiago.  Hospitals were not only health facilities, but the place where pilgrims were safe and could stay overnight.  The building went through many iterations including being a orphanage and a religious center before the XIX Century.  Eventually, it was taken up by the Spanish Government that built a chain of hotels throughout Spain with the main mission to save the buildings from going into disrepair. The chain did so well that Paradores today are considered the best hotels wherever they are. They usually have impressive buildings and sites and, they are run extremely well.

The hotel is situated in the main square, next to the Cathedral.  As we drove to the hotel through the ancient streets of Santiago, throngs of pilgrims were making their way to the Cathedral.  In the main square, the sound of bagpipes gave a sound track to the incredible views of the square, full with pilgrims and tourists.

The cobblestone streets presented shops and a variety of restaurants.  The food in Galicia has been amazing, and Santiago was no exception.  We continue to have an octopus a day. (Yes, I know, we are making them extinct. I promise I will not eat them once I am back in the US.)  Galician cuisine is just irresistible to my taste.  But I am happy to report that we are down to 3 courses a day, well some times 4 and the occasional turron ice cream in my case.  I will need to write an entire page on turron ice cream, but I will say no more.

Despite the tourists, the city does not seem to be crowded. Fortunately for us, there are no cruise ships scheduled to dock during our visit.  

The Cathedral, which we loved 11 years ago when we completed the Camino, is in repairs. Unfortunately, there is not much to see any more. The walls are covered, the altars mainly empty and all of the pageantry gone. The bones of St. James are still there, but the statue every one kissed is gone. It was a bit of a disappointment, but the repairs are needed to continue the legacy.

St. James, was given a name of the Son of Thunder, due to his impulsive character. He was one of the first 4 Disciples of Christ, belonging to a fishing village near Nazareth.

After Christ’s death, St. James preached in Jerusalem and then traveled to Hispania, a Roman province making up what today is Spain, and continued on to present day Portugal. He was discouraged, but the Virgin Mary appeared to him in the River Ebros, which gives rise to the Virgin of the Pilar (Virgen del Pilar).  The Virgin encourages him and he completes his preaching, returning to Palestine, where he developed a good following. Eventually he is put to death by Herod. Thus, he became the first martyr of the 12 apostles.  Two of his disciples took his remains and eventually brought them to Santiago de Compostela. As word spread around, pilgrims stared to come to venerate the remains. Eventually, a Cathedral was build and the rest is history.  

St. James makes a come back during the war with the Arabs, where in a particular battle he appears in the battlefield slaying the Moors, and from there he got the nickname Santiago Matamoros (or Santiago Killer of Moors).  He is made patron of Spain later on for his appearance hundred of years after his death.

The city remains a magnet for pilgrims, attracting 800,000 pilgrims,that actually do the walk, plus millions of tourists. It is hard for me not to get Camino fever here. My body seems to want to start walking in the direction of any camino. The good news is that our taxi driver in A Coruña, said he can organize transport of baggage anywhere in this section. This opens up about 3 Caminos that I did not do for lack of luggage transportation. I may have to dedicate a good part of the year to walking caminos!

On our first visit, we saw very little of Santiago.  This time around, we had plenty of time and even then, did not get to see all that it offers.  The hidden gem, which is not even listed as a top attraction, is the Monasterio de San Martin Pinario.  Even more impressive than the Cathedral, this 380,000 square feet monastery, is the second largest in Spain. Today, it houses a hotel, a museum, but has an active Church as well, a seminary and an on-going monastery.  We were lucky and got the guided tour just for the two of us, since most people do not know this place even exist, though is feet away from the Cathedral.  It took 600 years to build and its altars go back to the XVI Century, though most of what is seeing today is from the XVII-XVII Century.  The statues are made of wood, but it looks like marble.  The architecture is outstanding.  It is a must see, probably the most impressive edifice we have seen. Even the hotel, which caters mainly to pilgrims, is quite beautiful. It was established as a Benedictine Monastery and still run as one. Our guide regaled us with stories from each of the depictions in the walls and wood.  

We went also to a variety of Churches, Convents, the Market place, called Abastos (It has a cousin market place in Argentina.) If you get lost in Santiago, within a few feet, you will find an interesting building, church, or statue. It is a wonder city.

 I attended a piece of the Pilgrim’s Mass, now celebrated in a Church close to the Cathedral, and it was full of pilgrims from every nation.  

Santiago, the end of the Camino, or the beginning of many caminos!

FINISTERRE

In one of our days in Santiago, we contracted a guide to take us to Finnestre, with various stops along the way.  For some, Finisterre, literally meaning the end of earth, is the real end of the Camino.  The city was named by Romans, who thought this was the end of earth, which it was back then. A lighthouse was constructed to help ships navigate this treacherous waters known as the Sea of Death. Horns are attached to the lighthouse so that they can warm ships when the fog is so dense the lights do not get through. The lighthouse was built in I Century, but was re-built and refurbished throughout the years. It is quite different than the ones I am used to seeing, as it is rather a three-story building that looks almost flat. Besides, the giant horns at the sides make it unique.

There is a legend version that the Camino de Santiago was in fact a Christian re-naming of a much older pilgrimage, Way of the Stars – Camino de las Estelas.  Like the CDS, CDE started in various places and made its way to present day Santiago and continued on to Finisterre.  It was sort of a Pagan/Celtic pilgrimage following the stars, where magic abounded as you trekked down the Way. (Not much different than the mysticism associated with the present day Christian Camino.)  I always wanted to see this, so this was my day.

During the day, we experienced normal rain, torrential rain, sometime winds of up to 70 miles per hour and about 10 minutes of sunshine.  The fog covered most of could have been spectacular vistas of the sea.  In addition, our guide/driver did not stop talking for 8 hours straight about his family, every single relative, and his entire life, rather than what he took us to see. So I now know everything there is to know of his family. He also insisted, though I tried firmly to keep him away from the topic, to tell me every single detail of his trip to Cuba. On the positive side, he taught me patience and tolerance, and took us to one of the best lunches in the trip so far.

We past through several rivers, including one with a Roman bridge, stopped at Muros, a fishing village, where woman harvest shell fish, the waterfall of Ezaro and then to the lighthouse itself.

The rain, wind and the fog, made the walk to the lighthouse, and kilometer 0, a mystical experience. It was like walking in a movie set.  At the end of the yard where the lighthouse is, a cross stands which is full of mementos from the pilgrims that arrived there.  Below the lighthouse, just a few feet away, stands the lighthouse keeper house, now turned into a 6-room hotel, which I hope I get to stay in one day. The Finisterre Way is an 87-kilometer walk, which has been added to my future walks. Once again, so many Caminos, so little time!

Despite the rain, the wind, the mist and the guide, I enjoyed visiting Finisterre. After all, I was at the end of the earth!

VIGO

I scheduled a one day/night visit to Vigo based on a song.  I recalled this song “Para Vigo Me Voy” (To Vigo I will Go) from my childhood and was curious why some one wanted to go to Vigo. So to Vigo I went.

Vigo is a city of about 400,000 inhabitants. It is not particularly beautiful, but is not ugly either. It is just a very quiet seaside town. It has a giant car manufacturing facility, a very active port, and they still build ships here.  The city is clean and has hills around it, many parks, and a small “old town”, almost medieval.  The number one activity to do here is to eat. They supposedly have the best seafood dishes anywhere. We went out to test this theory and ate at their famous “Rua de las Pedras o Rua de las Ostras”.  This road is full of restaurants and oyster vendors.

There are not many tourists around. In fact, I think we are the only ones. 

We took a taxi tour to see the key hills, parks, beaches and sites. Then we had a tremendous lunch, which included a huge pot full of rice, fish and seafood (a paella of sorts). After this huge lunch, we walked around town and were done by 6 PM, having seeing all of what Vigo offers.

Apparently, the best beach in the world is on an island across Vigo, but you need to take a boat to get there. So we will leave without seeing the best beach in the world.

I am now assuming that the writer of the song wanted to come to Vigo for reasons other than the city. However, I may never know.

THOUGHTS ON GALACIA

Our last stops in the train and the past week have given me a perspective of Galicia. Since crossing over to this province, the people are much more reserved and there is not the warmth I experienced in the other parts of Spain. It is not like they are rude, they just engage you as necessary to get what you need done, period. The hotel staff and shopkeepers appear to be more distant and less enthusiastic. The guides in the train foretold us about this peculiarity and their portrayal turned out to be very accurate.

Repeatedly, we have been told the weather here is unstable. Galicians get out in the morning with three layers of clothes, a raincoat and an umbrella. They claim they may use it all of it before a day is gone.  We have experienced all the seasons in our stay in Galicia. And it rains a lot.

Galicia from the beginning of its history had no industry. Some claim is because of the Guerras Irmandiñas. In this event, a kind of middle class of the XV Century reveled against the nobles and cast them out. Apparently, later on, when the nobles returned, they killed the middle class and burned the crops and the region never recovered. With no middle class, industry never developed. It was expected that Franco, who was a Galician, will favor them, but he built all of the infrastructure in other regions.  Finally, after the Reconquista, it was necessary to move the crops and other industry to regions that the Arabs used to control to attract Christians, Galicia, which was never under Arab occupation, did not get that. To this date, there is no industry here. They have the oldest population of Spain, as the young leave in search of opportunities elsewhere.

Most of what I know of my background comes from my father’s side. I know my grandfather, who I hardly knew, came from the Canary Islands to Cuba in the late1800’s. I also heard that his family was from Galicia and immigrated to the Canary Islands for a better future, which they did not find there. From there, they went to Cuba, where he did improve his lot in life. 

Ancestry.com claims that I am 38% Portuguese, and 37% Spaniard and their profile matches what I heard – basically migration from Spain to the Canary Islands to Cuba. I suspect, the Portuguese comes from a time that Galicia and Portugal shared the same land, as Portugal was part of Spain for many centuries.  

Galicia’s language, the Gallego, is nothing more than Portuguese with some words of Spanish mixed in.  Both lands share a Celtic path that the Romans could not eliminate all together – the music, the bagpipes, some of the rituals – give you hints of the mysterious Celts.

Ever since I hit Galicia, I felt right at home. It could be the food, which reminds me of my mother’s cooking. It could be my mind playing tricks on me. It could be that one really feels his roots when you encounter them. The weather has not bothered me, though I prefer sunshine.  And the people, are they not a little bit like me?

Galicia with its witches and virgins, with a thousand and one legend, was indeed magic to me.

PORTUGAL – June 21-25, 2019

PORTO

Our guide/driver picked us early in Vigo to take us on a tour of Porto and then to our hotel. He told us that he was a lawyer and an ex-CEO that decided to get into the tourist business.  We did not get a lot of information on Porto, but we did get his view on the European Market, Spain, politics, business transformations, branding and other assorted topics. On the plus side, I got the best saying from his father – “In times of trouble, there are two kinds of people, the people who cry and the people that sell the tissues.”  I thought that was worth the fare.

He also went out of the scheduled route to take us to Viana do Castello. This is a very picturesque town next to the ocean, with a sanctuary at a top of a hill with very impressive views. With the sun out, we did get to admire the entire landscape.

I cut the tour of Porto short, because he really did not have much to contribute other than pointing us out to the attractions in town. On our own, we visited the Cathedral/Fort at the top of the town, the train station (a former monastery), the bridges, a variety of churches, a monastery, various plazas and the pedestrian only shopping area and restaurant area. The most interesting Church/Monastery, other than the Cathedral, is two Churches that are together, but separated by a thin house that shields them from one another. Apparently, it was not allowed to build a Convent/Church adjacent to a Monastery/Church. To solve the problem, they build a thin house in between. Some one lived there making sure the nuns and the monks did not get together. These buildings were from the XVII and XVIII Century.  The other novelty in town is the old buildings decorated with blue tiles, which actually happened in the early 1900’s but was done to very old buildings, including Churches.

Of course, we got to visit the most beautiful library in the world, according to them, and it really is – Livraria Lello. Apparently, Rowling wrote the first two books of Harry Porter in this bookstore, where she taught English. The inspiration for Harry Porter supposedly came from the bookstore. It is beautiful, and long lines of people stand outside to pay 5 Euros to go in and buy books! What a concept!  Our guide did get us fast passes, so at least we did not have to wait.

Porto is a good-looking city, with many attractions both historically and geographically.  The river going through the middle of the city is quite nice. It has street performers, pedestrian streets. It is not quite as medieval as the cities we saw in Spain, but it does have an old town.  It also has its shares of Virgins, but so far I have not found any events related to them.

The city is full of tourists and there are people everywhere.  May be as a result, we have not found the Portuguese as accommodating as the Spaniards. Neither, we had a decent meal since we got here.  In our first day, we had trouble finding a place for lunch. We will walk in restaurants and would be ignored or offered tables in the scorching sun, where there were others in the shade. When we did find a restaurant, the food was at best mediocre. The second day we elected a place near the hotel and the food was a disaster. Unlike Spain, where almost anywhere you went, you could get a decent meal, this is not the case here. Oh well! The hotel does serve a nice breakfast and there is always bread.

FATIMA

We left the hotel under torrential rains to go to Fatima. Our driver was one hour late due to “business problems”. Fortunately, he did not talk throughout the 5-hour trip except to answer questions. 

With mild rains, we arrived at Fatima, which was lightly attended. Our driver showed us extensive parking lots that he claims are completely full at certain times of the year. Our entrance to the Sanctuary coincided with a procession to take the Virgin from the Basilica to the Apparition Chapel.  It included singing, bell ringing and, of course, the procession itself. The later is where the Virgin resides, except for trips to the Basilica, and where she appeared to the shepherd children.

I was underwhelmed by the whole thing. It could be the Basilica is a fairly new building and the Church in the other side, is extremely modern. The place did not have the atmosphere I felt in Lourdes. Of course, there were some people fervently praying, including a whole bunch of young people, making their way to the Chapel kneeling, but the majority of the people seemed to be tourists.  I was somewhat disappointed.

But the place has its story.

In 1916, three cousins were herding sheep when the Angel of Peace appeared to them and taught them prayers. In May 1917, these three shepherds started seeing apparitions of a “Lady more brilliant than the Sun”.  They went on to say that in October 13^th , the Lady will reveal her identity and perform a miracle. The children will end up reporting 6 apparitions and three messages or secrets. On October 13, the last apparition, a huge crowd gathered (somewhere between 30-100,000) and the reports of what happened vary.  The most common one was that after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky, casting multicolored lights across the landscape, while careening towards earth and then zigzagging back to the normal position.

The Catholic Church proclaimed the entire events surrounding Fatima, as “worthy of belief.” 

The three secrets are all apocalyptic. The first secret is a vision of hell, some interpreted this as WWI.  The second one predicted the end of a great war, but followed by even a greater one, if people did not cease offending God. The Virgin asked for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. If her requests were heeded, Russia will be converted and there would be peace; if not, Russia would spread her errors. Russia was indeed consecrated in 1952, but apparently too late, as we still have Putin raising havoc everywhere.

The third secret is full of controversy and conspiracy theories.  Lucia, the only surviving shepherd – the other two died in the flu pandemic of the 1900’s – did not want to reveal the third secret, but was ordered to, but with a request that it will be revealed in 1960. The Vatican did not publish the secret on schedule and instead provided a four page, handwritten text of the secret written by Lucia in June 26, 2000. The text, which is very apocalyptical, has been interpreted as foretelling the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, and the persecution of the Church. 

However, many within the Catholic Church claim that the real third secret is a one-page document that has never been revealed.  Some claim the third secret deals with Apocalypse and a great apostasy, including the infiltration of the Church by Satanic forces. 

Malachi Martin, a priest that at one time was the Church’s Chief Exorcist and a confidant of Popes and Cardinals, claimed that he read the third secret, but was sworn to secrecy. However, he says that the third secret would be traumatic to the masses, with events worse than ever described. Coincidentally, I came to know about Malachi through reading all of Scott Peck’s books (The Road Less Traveled is his best known book.). Mr. Peck was initiated into exorcism by Malachi, who wrote a manual for it. (You still can get it in print, is quite interesting.)  As I was looking for career alternatives, I read most of Malachi’s books. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of possessed people in Juno Beach, so I was not able to develop a business. Perhaps, if I move to Washington DC, I could resurrect that business.

Secrets, devotion to a Virgin, the apparitions, natural phenomena, this is the stuff of Fatima. 

LISBON

During our first day in Lisbon, we walked aimlessly through the old sections in town. As in Porto, there were lots of people everywhere.  There were restaurants everywhere, some street performers and a carnival atmosphere. (It was Sunday.)

Our hotel reminds me of Tahiti, if for nothing else, that hamburgers are $45.  For my meal of the day, I elected a steak sandwich, with about 2 ounces of meat and nothing else for the bargain price of $38. It is a beautiful hotel with works of arts in the hallways, but significantly over priced.

On our second day, we were met by our tour guide/driver, who took us for an 8-hour tour of the city.  For a change, he was well informed and did talk about every sight, the city, the history and Portugal. It was very informative. He did digress from time to time to tell us about the injustices of the systems, the corruption of politicians and of course, the underpayment of professionals.  But overall, he has been the best guide to date.

I thought I over reached with an 8-hour tour. I was wrong. I will not even begin to see the city in 8 hours. Without going inside the buildings, we barely had time to see the main attractions.  This is due to the fact that the city is spread out. The monuments are not close to each other. Also, there is a lot to see and do in this city. It probably will take about 4 days to do it justice.

We did go to Belem and had their famous cream cakes with a good cup of coffee. Belem is full of enchantment, other than the cakes.  Towers, river sights, churches and monasteries are all around this district.

The old town, the cathedral, the Monument to the Discoveries, Edward VI Park, the Monastery of St. Geronimo, various high points, and various districts were visited.  It was a full day. We did not going any buildings other than the Cathedral.  Even with the rain, the views were impressive and we got a taste of what the city was to offer.

We had lunch at supposedly the bet place for cod fish in the city – Laurentina O Rei do Bacalhau. We had their famous dish and… We did not like it. I guess we do not like Portuguese dishes, though desserts are great.

SINTRA, CASCAIS, ESTORIL

On our third day, our driver/guide took us to various cities, which are part of the Portuguese Riviera.  We drove by Cascais and even stopped for coffee and admiring the seaside resort. Just 30 minutes from Lisbon, this city was more like a seaside Mediterranean town.  It had plenty of bars, restaurants and nightspots as well as scores of 5 star hotels. In fact, every city we visited today was full of 5 star hotels.

We saw the main casino of the area, a hotel where royalty has stayed since it was built, now a Four Season Hotel, and various places of interest. 

We drove through Estoril and went to a very high place where a lighthouse was built. The scenery was spectacular and rivals anything we have seen seaside cliff like.

Then we drove to the main event, the Palacio da Pena. Built in the XIX Century by Fernando II, the palace, apart from being huge, combines various styles neo-gothic, neo-Islamic and a variety of other styles.  It is beautiful from the outside. We did not get to enter because there was a 2-hour wait and we did not have enough time.  There are numerous gardens, forest and palaces in the area, which again we did not get to see. We did see from the distance The Castle of the Moors, an ancient Moorish fortification also in top of a mountain.

The area is overwhelmed with tourists and they have not been able to figure out the logistics to support the influx of people. To get there, you drive through a very narrow road that spins around the mountain. You can imagine the traffic of buses, cars, bicycles and assorted vehicles getting in and out of the area. Over 2 million people visited this place last year.

Our guide took us to a local restaurant in Sintra, where we had our first good lunch in Portugal.  It was full of local people and the food was great. We had I think Stewed Goat and it was delicious, we even got rice for the first time in a while.

THOUGHTS ON PORTUGAL

Portugal is supposed to be very reasonable, as to cost, compared to other European destinations. We did not find this to be the case.  We found everything more expensive than at least Spain.

We never did get a ‘wow” meal, and quite a few bad meals. The scenery was very good in the Simtra/Cascais area. However, outside of that, it did not measure to our other stops in the trip. Perhaps, if we had stayed longer in Lisbon and a shorter time in Porto, it would have been different.

They are getting better in handling tourists, but have a long way to go. They are definitely behind Spain in being a tourist-oriented country.

I also did not get a feeling about the people. It could be the language, but it was hard to get to know them. 

I felt like I did not get to see Portugal, but just a sampling.  There is much to see in Lisbon and the surrounding areas, we just saw a few highlights and never to got to enter any of the famous sites. The amount of tourists makes it hard to efficiently see more than a few things a day. 

It also may be that is the end of the trip and I am just plain tired of seeing things.

I just did not enjoy Portugal as much as I did the other portions of the trip.

 EPILOGUE

I have been 43 days on the road. Walked 123 miles, took a 400 miles train ride and drove over 2,400 miles. Along the way, over 40 cities were visited, experienced 5 languages and ate over 30 octopuses.  We saw multiple building and places built in the XVI-XVII Centuries and even a few churches from the I Century. This was by far the most complex trip that I have planned, and it involved very complex logistics. I am surprised that everything worked as planned, with very minor glitches. I do not believe I will ever do something as complex again.

The experience was very good and I enjoyed most of the trip, even with less than optimal weather and being sick for the better part of 15 days.  I have seen many things that I never dreamed I will see, I experienced a coming home sort of feeling. And I have searched for Virgins, stories, myths and legends.

What did I learn from the Search for Virgins? What about the apparitions, the healings, the miracles attributed to the Virgin Mary, in its many representations? Fact, fiction, superstition.

I observed that there are a significant number of people that truly believe these stories. There are still people who are truly devoted, full of faith and find comfort and joy in their beliefs. I did not observe any harm from any of those beliefs. It is actually beautiful to watch this.

Unexplained stuff happens all of the time. Whether they are divine or just not explained at this time, I do not know.

Christian tradition had transcended millennia and offers a sense of continuity. Observing liturgy that had been performed centuries before my birth and will continue to do so centuries after my death is moving.

Part of the belief system and miracles of the Virgins provides also a cultural basis. The stories passed on from generation to generation, most of them linked to a geographical place.

Personally, I love the stories, whether they are true or not. I love the traditions and even the liturgy. It brings me back to the history of the centuries. I also loved the XVI-XVII century.

At an intellectual level, I suspect none of it really happened. But I disregard the intellect a lot, in favor of the impossible. Every night, I speak to my son Nicholas and tell him what is going on and ask for his help from time to time. I know is highly improbable that he is listening. But it gives me a sense of continuity, of keeping him alive and most of all of peace. And who knows, he may be there after all.

Where I come out, is that I do not care one way or the other if these things happened or not. It is still all good.

So one search ends and hopefully there will be many more in the future.

I neglected Pink Floyd in the last two postings, but here they are back…

COMFORTABLY NUMB

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

I…..have become comfortably numb