Sept 18: more Astorga

We decided to take a taxi today to the next town of Rabanal del Camino.  Linda's shin splints continue to be very painful and today's hike didn't really offer much in terms of sites to see along the way.  But most of all, there are some segments coming up that we really want to be able to hike, so we want to make sure Linda is as healed as possible.  Hence, a day off from hiking sounded like the right thing to do.

The good news is that in Rabanal del Camino there is an Albergue that has a person who specializes in physiotherapy to help the pilgrims.  Linda saw him and got an excruciating massage on her left shin & calf, plus the name of a homeopathic anti-inflammatory she should use.  And, as often happens on the Camino, on her way back to the hotel, Linda ran into a French woman who we have seen frequently during our hikes.  Linda explained about her shin splints and the arnica pills she wanted to find, and the French woman happened to have some with her.  Furthermore, this was her last day on the Camino, so in true pilgrim fashion, she insisted on giving Linda the rest of her arnica.  She said she worked in a drug store and could easily get more when she returned to France.  It was a wonderful thing to do, and as I mentioned, very consistent with the whole mindset of everyone who is on the Camino.  While in Astorga, we also bought Linda some compression socks for her lower calf, to hold the muscle and tendons closer to her shin bone (since shin splints are the muscle and tendons pulling away from that bone).  So hopefully Linda will be able to resume hiking tomorrow.

Instead of hiking, we decided to explore Astorga a little bit more.  Astorga is another walled city that still retains the majority of its walls.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it also has some Roman ruins that are still in good condition considering they are almost 2,000 years old.  We decided to explore the cathedral and the Bishop's palace.  The cathedral dates back to the 12th century, and like so many other cathedrals here, it was very impressive.  The first picture below is of the outside of the cathedral.  However, the Bishop's Palace was even more interesting.  It isn't really a Bishop's palace.  It's a museum.  Furthermore, it was built by Gaudi, so it was very interesting architecturally.  The outside was neat, but the inside was what was really fabulous.   It was very open, making it flow from one room to the next.  Also there were arched ceilings on every floor, and lots of stained glass to let light in, which allowed you to see the pieces that were on display really well.  There was an area with items dedicated to the pilgrims.  And as would be expected, there was also a lot of art that was church related.  And in the basement there was a whole display of Roman artifacts.  There were several stones from the 2nd century where we could clearly read what had been etched in Latin (and the museum also provided a Spanish translation next to each).  The second picture in the blog is of the outside of the Bishop's palace, and the third and fourth pictures are of the inside.