Today was a rather quiet, uneventful day. We walked from Santo Domingo de Calzada to Belorado, a 23 kilometer hike (which equates to roughly 14.5 miles). The early morning departure continues to go well, as we arrived at our destination around 1:30pm today. Along the way, we stopped by a small town called Viloria de la Rioja. This is where Saint Dominic (or Santo Domingo in Spanish) came from. Saint Dominic is the patron saints of all builders. That's because he pretty much devoted his life to building bridges, hospitals, and other buildings, all to help the pilgrims make their way along the Camino. And for that, Santo Domingo de Calzada (where he did most of his building and which became a key stop along the Camino) was named after him.
The first picture is of inside the church in Viloria de la Rioja, where Saint Dominic was born. It's pretty simple compared to the churches we've seen in the larger cities, but Viloria de la Rioja is a pretty small town (total population is only around 70 people).
The second picture is of one of our credencials being stamped in the church in Viloria de la Rioja. One of the way that pilgrims mark their journey is by having their "passport" or credencial stamped by the different places they visit. We've had our credencials stamped at the hotels we've stayed in, some of the restaurants and churches we've visited, and today we even had our credencial stamped at a Tourist Information center just as we entered the region of Castilla and Leon (no more Rioja, and unfortunately that means no more vineyards, either). So far, we have 29 stamps in our credencial. That's probably a little overzealous, given that we've only been traveling on the Camino for 10 days. Thankfully, we have a second set of credencials for both of us. The only question is when we'll have to break those out and start using them.
The third picture is of something that provided a nice pick-me-up today along the Camino. One of the crops we see a lot of have been sunflowers. Well, this particular field ran right along the path we were on, and some of the other pilgrims before us had strategically removed some of the seeds in the flower to create smiley faces, peace signs, people's initials and even the backside of a lady bug. This was just a small segment of the field, but hopefully it brings a smile to your face, just like it did to ours today.
No comments:
Post a Comment