Sunday 11 June 2017

Camino Day 18: Frómista – Carrión de Los Condes (27/03/17)

The following morning the other pilgrims in the dormitory were very slow to get up – I suppose unlike us, they had been walking for approximately a fortnight already. Even so, having been awake since 6.30 am and since there was no sign of anyone switching the lights on, I felt that by 7.30 I was justified in doing so myself. 
San Miguel
Personally, I like the albergues where the Hospitalero comes around at 7.00 and switches the lights and roars good morning on as this takes the responsibility off other pilgrims who want to get up but don’t feel they can do so out of politeness. I also don’t like leaving albergues in the dark as I am afraid of leaving stuff behind, and as other people still try and do so, loudly rustling bags and “lamping” those still in bed with their head torches (like our Korean friend back in Belorado), the lights may as well be switched on anyway!
Lancet window, San Miguel
The previous night I had enjoyed talking to Erkan – a pleasant young man from Turkey who now lives in Germany and works in the VW Spare Parts factory. He was being joined on the Camino in León by his brother. Erkan told me that his parents and Uncle thought he was quite mad to be using his holiday to go walking across Spain instead of relaxing by a pool! He was obviously a deep thinker as he was reading a large and weighty tome by Dostoyevsky. The following morning, Erkan was still in bed as we prepared to leave at 8.10, but our gregarious Australian friends (Jim, a Pentecostal pastor, Reuben and Dan) were already loudly up and about.
Heather, Matthew & David leaving Poblacion de Campos
We made our way down the street, past San Martín, to the same bar for breakfast where we had waited for the taxi in October 2015 and then we set off out of town following behind two Italian pilgrims who had a were clearly smoking joints as there was a pungent smell of weed! The day’s walking was dominated by a chilly wind blowing from the South, gravel tracks and wide-open fields, punctuated only very occasionally, by a flowering tree with which I was unacquainted.
Virgen del Rio
We quickly crossed the A67 dual carriageway, which runs west of Frómista, on a flyover bridge and encountered a modern pilgrim sculpture consisting of a flat sheet of rusty steel, out of which a pilgrim seemed to striding. It seemed like the pilgrim was breaking out of the two dimensionality of their flat existence into a new sphere of reality and I thought it a very suitable metaphor of the new horizons and avenues in life that walking the Camino can open up!
David resting at Virgen del Camino
Nearby, was the lovely little hermitage of San Miguel set back from the road amidst some trees with it’s weathered, honey-coloured stone and a bricked up gothic arch that suggested to me that the hermitage was perhaps originally planned as the chancel of a much larger church that was never completed?
Knights Templar Church at Villalcazar de Sirga
When we reached the river at Población de Campos, we took the quieter optional route away from the Senda and main road and passing another interesting medieval chapel, sunk down below the modern street level, struck out along a farm track and then along a gravel path lined by a poplar plantation beside the rather diminutive rio Ucieza.
Portal of Knights Templar Church
Our guidebook had a café symbol at Villovieco, but this was closed and there wasn’t even a shop in the village and as we were now desperate for second breakfast and Heather was feeling tired, we cut across to Revenga de Campos, only to find that the café there too was closed. By now the sun had come out and the temperature had warmed up a little, so we shed a few layers and resigned ourselves to a cereal bar and some fruit, before returning to Villovieco and walking on alongside the river.
Sitting with a pilgrim friend at Villalcazar de Sirga!
Many storks were foraging in the expansive fields or else taking to the air to clatter their beaks in courtship displays. We also saw some type of wild canid running across the fields in the distance; it was probably a fox, but by the time we accessed our binoculars, it had crested the hill and was gone.
David and I walked on ahead and reached the large Baroque hermitage of the Virgen del Rio, which being set on a small hill, allowed us to rest and survey the view from a small bench. By the time Heather and Matthew joined us a few minutes later, Heather was struggling a little due to sore feet, tiredness and a headache and was a little tearful.
Villalcazar de Sirga
After checking that Heather was ok, David and I felt it would be good to give Matthew and Heather a few minutes of privacy to rest and recuperate and so we walked on to Villalcázar de Sirga. I was really looking forward to seeing the Knights Templar church; the transitional Romanesque 13th century church of Santa María la Blanca. It is famous for the seated statue of the Virgen Blanca to which the poet-king Alfonso X “the wise” attributed 12 miracles, the polychrome reliefs on the high altar and the gothic tombs of Don Pedro, fifth son of Fernando III “the holy” and his wife. However, all these treasures were denied to me as the owner of the local bar informed us that the church is only open on Sundays! One day too late!! I consoled myself by examining the enormously tall porch which frames a richly carved portal and by enjoying watching a resident Kestrel which was wheeling around the church and plaza.
We entered the bar and had two very large bocadillos and a glass of Rioja followed by a slice of flan and a café con leche. Matthew and Heather soon joined us and after lunch I used a rather fun statue-cum-seat installation of a medieval pilgrim to get out my podiatry supplies and do some first aid on Heather’s feet.
Doorway Villalcazar de Sirga
Heather was by now feeling much better and fortified by food and fellowship we marched on Carrión de los Condes, checking into the albergue at the convent of Santa Clara on the outskirts of the town. We had walked 20.5km in 6 hours and 35 minutes.
Matthew & Heather approaching Carrion de los Condes
St. Francis of Assisi supposedly stayed in Santa Clara on his pilgrimage to Santiago and it had a lovely courtyard that I liked with a stone cross in the middle, a loggia and a small well. The hospitalero was a friendly but an extremely lugubrious character, who gave the impression of having the weight of the world upon his shoulders. He provided us with two twin rooms which were quite comfortable, except for the fact that they were extremely cold. Luckily, I had my three seasons sleeping bag and there were plenty of blankets. Matthew and Heather complained that the shower upstairs was also freezing, but this may have been because I enjoyed a delightfully warm shower downstairs and perhaps this diverted all the warm water!
Convent of Santa Clara
After showering we went to investigate the town centre. The remains of a ruined gateway topped by a Spanish flag mark the entrance to the town centre. Heather and David went off to find a supermarket to buy some supplies and Matthew and I spent a few minutes sitting in the 12th century church of Santa María del Camino. The south door has a porch which frames a very worn portal which is hard to interpret and is supposed to represent a miracle in which Carrión was freed from a tribute of 100 virgins which Christian Spain had to provide to the Muslims during the period of the Muslim conquests of the Iberian peninsula.
Courtyard of Santa Clara
The main enjoyment for me however, was just to sit quietly with Matthew, meditate and just watch the comings and goings of people entering the church for prayer and worship. Sister Mary Coombes from the Leb Shomea (a listening heart) Community in Texas has said that ‘Silence is not “me and God” but a way of being present to each other in God’ and that is certainly how I feel when I spend time praying and meditating with Matthew. I don’t have many friends like that and it is something for which I am very grateful and value immensely.
Remains of town walls, Carrion de los Condes
After about half an hour we met Heather and David outside the church and walked around town. I admired the 12th century west façade of the Church of Santiago. The church itself was sacked and burned at the beginning of the 19th century by Napoleonic troops, but the façade survives and has a finely carved frieze well worth examination. Christ sublimely sits in majesty in the centre of the composition, flanked by the symbols of the Evangelists and the figures of the disciples. In the archivolts of the portal 24 figures represent “trades, skills, games and battle scenes” according to Lozano.
Portal of Santa Maria del Camino
In the Plaza Generalisimo we bumped into the Australians once more and then walked down to the rio Carrión, observing how the old town is well situated on a rocky bluff above the river – a very defendable site well chosen by the Counts of Carrión, the rulers of the area in the Medieval period.
Christ in Majesty, Church of Santiago
We really enjoyed our walk and liked the town and rounded off the evening with an excellent pilgrim menu in a local restaurant near Plaza Santillana. Matthew complained that I was taking too long to decide which restaurant to go into, but I do start to dither when I am hungry (whereas he becomes fractious 😉)and we did make the right choice in the end. We also enjoyed talking to another pilgrim – Denis from Cork, who it turned out, recognised David’s face from his years in the Fire Service and was walking approximately 50km a day!
Pillar on portal of Chruch of Santiago
After dinner we returned to Santa Clara, where we prayed before bed and then were glad to retreat to the insulation of our sleeping bags due to the freezing tempertures. In the early hours of the morning I got up to use the toilet and within a couple of minutes I was literally shaking with the bone numbing cold and was glad to run down the corridor and dive back into my sleeping bag as quickly as possible! 
Matthew & Heather enjoying dinner


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