The Road Within

From Itero to Leon it's about 120 km, which I walked in 4 days at an average of 30 km a day. I had to dig deep into myself during this part of the journey. I found it psychologically hard. I think there were various reasons for this. For a start, exterior distractions were minimal - or certainly less obvious - on the prairie land of the Tierra de Campos. There were few features, few landmarks. Sometimes you would walk for many hours without any significant change in the landcape. Often through fog. Also, many of the paths were long and straight and followed roads. These paths were called senda and had been specially made for the Camino travellers. However they were often soulless and always hard on the feet. Yet eventually, after a few days, I grew to accept these wide plains and straight paths, and even to enjoy them. It was just a question of perspective, of expectation. The problem lay in myself, not in the landscape. I dug even deeper. I internalized the whole experience more than ever before. And I grew to appreciate the little details of this flat, farming landscape - a ruined hermitage, a red-mud adobe house, a stagnant canal. One evening the fog lifted and I saw a magnificent purple sunset over the town of Mansilla.

I won't go into detail about all the towns and villages I passed through during these soul-searching 4 days - many have blurred into each other in my mind - Fromista, Poblacion, Villovieco, Villasirga, Moratinos, El Burgo Ranero... In Carrion de los Condes I spent a night in unusual luxury at the restored monastery of San Zoilo which is now a very smart and beautiful hotel. Just before Ledigos I took a variation from the main road route on a path through woodland (it was strange to see a few trees for a while!) near the rio Cueza. In Sahagún I went to early morning mass. I had now crossed from Palencia into the wealthy province of Leon. The 1st photo, taken just before Sahagún, shows the simple, brick built sanctuary of the hermitage of Our Lady of the Bridge (Ermita Virgen del Puente) and the 2nd photo is of the bridge itself. The 3rd photo was taken in Sahagún, an ordinary, unpretentious and, I found, friendly town, rich in ancient buildings.

More Meseta

After Hontanas a cold, clear, frosty morning walk on 28 November led to lovely Castrojeriz. The 1st photo shows the approach, and the ruined castle on the hill. Later an Irish journalist-playwright-pilgrim told me he had spent several hours up there and had seen a dead eagle. The 2nd photo I took in the centre of town - site of many Moor-Christian wars and a major halt on the medieval Camino.

It was then back onto the Meseta and up the Alto Mostelares (900 metres). The 3rd photo shows the view back towards Castrojeriz from our lunch spot. Sadly at many of these Spanish picnic places hikers had thrown their rubbish everywhere.

We crossed the rio Pisuerga at Itero de la Vega, and left the province of Burgos for the province of Palencia, and the Tierra de Campos, the Land of Fields: a flat, fertile agricultural plain of wheat fields criss-crossed by rivers, canals and irrigation channels, and dotted with isolated villages of mud-walled houses.