Sunday 18 June 2017

Camino Day 19: Carrión de los Condes – Ledigos (28/03/17)

We left Santa Clara at 8.50 and made our way to a nearby café which was just to the left of the ruined town gate, where we enjoyed a good breakfast. We nearly left without paying, but luckily when we got outside and were sorting through our bags, David remembered and quickly ran back in to settle the bill!

David and Heather had done a good job the night before of stocking up on snacks and supplies for lunch, because we knew that we were heading out onto the Calzada Romana – the Via Aquitana – the Roman road which originally ran from Bordeaux to Astorga and which for us would mean a 17.1km stretch of the Camino across the remote Meseta, with no shops or cafes between Carrión and Calzadilla de la Cueza.

We followed the attractive small bronze scallop shell plaques that were set into the pavement, through Carrión town centre and then walked across the fine sloping stone bridge over the rio Carrión, out of town.
Bridge over rio Carrion
On the far side of the river we passed the former monastery of San Zoilo. Dating from the 11th – 16th centuries, it has fine Plateresque cloisters and is the burial place of the Leónese Beni- Gómez family who were Counts of Carrión and ruled most of the tierra de campos. I was keen to see the cloisters and the Counts’ tombs and I knew that San Zoilo was no longer a monastery, but now a luxury hotel. I called in at the hotel reception, presuming I could visit the cloisters, only to find to my dismay, that the part of the monastery with the church, tombs and cloisters had been turned into a museum and was open from 10.00 – 16.00. I had miscalculated – I should have visited San Zoilo the previous afternoon; paying my respects to the Counts would have to wait to another time! I made do with photographing the fine Renaissance main entrance to the monastery and we passed on; crossing the N-120  and walking out along an increasingly quiet country road, until we came to an intersection with another equally quiet road at which point a modern stone marker announced the start of the surviving stretch of the Via Aquitana.
San Zoilo
The gravel covered road stretched to the horizon across a wide empty landscape of large fields, with only the occasional farm building interrupting the flatness. There were hardly any trees or even wild flowers. Only drainage ditches and irrigation channels divided the fields. My friend Matt, who walked the same stretch of the Camino a couple of months after us, described it as “nothingness, just empty fields”. Heather would have agreed with Matt and was not enjoying the monotony of the landscape. She said that she had grown up in a family culture where mountains and the sea were to be preferred and where “flat” was considered boring and to be avoided. I would have some sympathy with that view myself, but somehow though, I enjoyed the “nothingness”; the scrunch of gravel underfoot, the whisper of the wind in the grass and contemplating the convergence of the straight road and sky at that distant vanishing point.
Me at the Via Aquitana marker stone
And the colossal engineering achievement that the Romans had achieved by running this road across this remote landscape, also provided me with much to think about and this kept me from being bored. It is amazing to think that the road is 2,000 years old and yet is still intact and capable of carrying modern vehicles. It is built up above the surrounding landscape and goes through and area that was originally bogland. There is no natural stone locally and it is calculated that the Romans had to bring in 100,000 tons of rock from elsewhere, just to build the causeway, never mind the materials needed for the road surface itself!
Matthew & Heather on the Via Aquitana
As a by-product of the road construction, trade and urban settlements developed in northern Iberia and of course in Medieval times, pilgrims travelling to Santiago used it as we were doing, but we shouldn’t deceive ourselves – the Romans didn’t build this road to stimulate trade; no, it was built so they could move their legions quickly and efficiently from one area to another and quell any uprisings amongst the Iberian tribes. This colossal engineering achievement spoke of the ruthless imperial might of Rome, a military might that would expend seemingly limitless resources to maintain its iron rule.

It was another very cold day, with an extremely chilly wind blowing across the flat fields, so we were all well wrapped up with hats and several layers of clothing. When we stopped for a break and a snack, we didn’t tend to stay too long, because even in the sunshine it was cold when we were not moving.

Just after the Via Aquitana stone marker we said morning prayer together and read the bible readings for the day from the Church of Ireland Lectionary; passing around my Kindle to enable us do so.

A little while after Fuenta del Hospitalejo we found a concrete picnic table and had a chilly, but enjoyable lunch, warmed by a nice bottle of Rioja, that David had the foresight to purchase the previous evening!
Time for a chilly lunch!
A few kilometres further on, we encountered a rest shelter for pilgrims erected by the local Junta. We became quite familiar with these structures as we walked this final section of the Meseta. The architecture was always the same – a brick or earthen wall from which beams stretched, at an angle, from the top of the wall to the ground. The top of the beams were slated and the bottom half were open and under this lean-to a bench stretched the length of the wall. To my mind, the architecture had a slightly 1970’s feel or maybe it is just because there was a 1970’s housing estate of posh houses near where I grew up, which had fancy roof features of beams that were partially slated and partially open plan like the shelters? The shelters tended to be situated in lovely little grassy clearings with a few trees and there were often interesting information boards telling you about the local wildlife. A word of warning though – the backs of the walls tended to be used as toilets!

We took a few minutes to rest in the shelter, and as we were at least partially shielded from the wind, we enjoyed the sunshine and took communion together.
Matthew providing a weary Heather with husky power!
After several hours, the road finally descended a small hill into the village of Calzadilla de la Cueza, where we found an excellent café in the Camino Real albergue. Once refreshed, we walked the final 5.4km into the village of Ledigos, arriving at the El Palomar albergue at 16.28.
Descending to Calzadill de la Cueza
The albergue turned out to be ok, although rather basic; the owner switched on the heating for us, but the rooms and corridor were very cold and this wasn’t helped by a stable-type door, the top section of which was left open all the time, thus causing any residual heat in the corridor to drain outside!
After a very chilly shower I found an untidy grassy garden at the back of the albergue with some chairs and sat in the sun for a little while. It was decidely warmer outside the albergue than indoors! Clearly cold albergues were becoming a leitmotif on this trip!
Ledigos
Matthew and I then had a walk around the village and found another albergue nearby that looked much more modern (and warm!) and also had a nice looking café. We had thought El Palomar was the only albergue in the village as there was no mention of any others in our guidebook. However, I determined to be content in whatever situation I found myself!
The village itself was picturesque with lots of traditional cottages and farm buildings with adobe or packed earth walls to compensate for the lack of local stone. We climbed up to the Church of Santiago overlooking the village, but it was closed, so we seated ourselves in a spot of sunshine out of the wind to pray together, before returning to the albergue where we had a good pilgrim menu in the bar. It featured a warming soup in the first course, which I greatly appreciated!

I need hardly add that there was another shivering dash to the loo and back during the night, but at least the stars were impressive through the open stable door!

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