June 6--Longest Hike of the Camino...so far....
Holy SMOKES! Today ended up being our longest walk on the Camino so far - the total mileage at the end of the day added up to over 20 miles. Of course with the exact miles came a LOT of sellos. By the end of the day I had gotten 16 in all, just from TODAY! Most people get between 2-4 a day, I usually average around 7, but today was a GREAT day for sellos - plus there were some cool places we went that I wanted the sellos from cause they are all specific to the locality.
The first big stop on the walk was called Hospital de Orbigo - I love this excerpt our professor sent us :) “Stand on the bridge and look south through the grove of poplars along the river. If you look closely, you can see colored pennants waving, and you can hear on the evening breeze the whinny of horses and the laughter of knights and their ladies.” So basically, in 1434 , this knight named Suero de Quiñones (from León) was in love with this women (a mysterious and unnamed noble lady) and he wore a iron collar as a sign that he was a prisoner of love until she returned his love. But this gesture didn’t impress her, so as any logical person would do, he decided to show his love for her by challenging ALL THE KNIGHTS IN EUROPE to a joust, held in this town, Hospital de Orbigo :) Even the king, Juan II got into it and sent out a proclamation through all the land announcing the tournament and the challenge. This tournament is thought to be one of the last medieval tournaments held in Europe, and it was HUGE. To again quote the segment from the book our professor sent, at the end of the tournament “Suero appeared and proclaimed that since he had proved his fealty to his secret lady by wearing the iron band and by breaking 300 lances at the jousts, he was now free. With that he removed the iron band and presented it to the judges. The crowd roared its approval. From the bridge Suero led a procession all the way back to León, where he vowed—now that he was free—to journey to Compostela as a pilgrim. This he did, and when he reached the cathedral, he deposited a jewel-encrusted golden bracelet as token of his release from the prison of love. You will see the bracelet in Compostela around the neck of the image of Santiago Alfeo in the cathedral museum.” So all of the sellos in town and everything in this town has the jousting knight silhouette on it, so of COURSE I got all the sellos I could! Can you believe that? Like 800 years ago, they were JOUSTING here! One knight alone broke 300 LANCES!
The next highlight of the walk was COWS! We were just walking, I think around mile 10, and we passed this paddock of cows just chilling, but behind the paddock were the little calf houses, and there were calves in them! And of course, they were curious little babies that tried to eat our hats and enjoyed scritches:) it was a cute little pit stop for SURE!
Oh my gosh, so around mile 14, we were getting pretty tired, but then we came upon this literal OASIS. A beautiful outdoor sitting area with a giant table arrayed with every fruit you could think of - watermelon, grapes, apricots, kiwis, cherries, apples, pears, oranges, along with bread, water, lemonade, yoghurt, all in the shade of this big overhang. It was called “La casa de los Dioses” and it was so nice. We gave a small donation, sat for a moment, and ate delicious, cool, sweet watermelon in this literal garden of Eden, it was so cool. This guy who runs it lives in the converted stable and his van behind the outdoor sitting area and just spends all day keeping this feast of a table stocked--it was amazing.
Continuing on our way envigorated, we soon came upon a tall, concrete structure and OF COURSE climbed it ;)
Astorgas, the city we ended the day in, was actually SO GOOD, I’m really glad we got to rest after our long hike here. It was smallish - but still had lots to do, lots of stores, it is apparently known for its chocolate, it had a cathedral and a museum in an old Gaudí-designed building.
The “Palacio de Gaudí” as it was called was definitely cooler than the cathedral in my opinion. So, I can’t remember the whole story, but basically this building was commissioned from Gaudi in the late 1890s and was meant to be the house of a Bishop. He designed it in the Gothic style and drew all the blueprints, but then the architects guild of Spain or something didn’t like it, so he made some edits. But then Gaudi was like, actually, no, I don’t want to do this anymore. Anyway, there were all these different architects that were hired for the project and also ended up quitting because of differences of opinion from the architects guild. In the end the building wasn’t finished for 80 years and by the time it was finished, it didn’t make sense to be lived in anymore, so they made it into the museum. From what I can tell, Gaudi was kind of like the Spanish version of Frank Lloyd Wright (he’s an American architect that built some AMAZING houses like Falling Water). The thing is, Frank Lloyd Wright also built HOUSES. There is a definite way that architects design HOUSES vs BUILDINGS. I think that’s why the Palacio de Gaudi made me kind of sad. Is it a beautiful piece of art that can be admired inside and out? Of course! But it also feels like a home – the natural light, the layout, the livability of the building is WASTED as a museum, and it makes me sad that this HOUSE has never actually been lived in.
You know what WAS amazing at the end of the 20 mile day? A GOOD dinner of TASTY salad, steak (although mine was well done which I didn’t love) and chocolate crepes for dinner. The wait till 8:30 was WORTH it! Even though we were tired, Isaac, Tim, my roommate Emilee and I had time to play a few games and I ended the day with a nice soak in the tub before bed
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