The Santiago Road: The Sixth Day

Max, ready to roll

Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Castrojeriz to Sahagun 90.62 km
total for trip 544.73 km



The refugio was dark, dark, dark and not so warm. I was sound asleep when I suddenly was awoken by the sound of chanting. It was a men’s choir singing something medieval and as I began to wake up I had the strange idea that I was still asleep and the music was a dream. It was quite beautiful but so unexpected. Our host was playing a recording to put us in the proper pilgrim frame of mind, I suppose. We all stumbled out of our beds and the few lights in the refugio were turned on as everyone–probably about eight of us–began to pack up our gear. Once that was done (I was in no mood for a cold shower as I was already cold enough), we trooped upstairs for breakfast. This was also rather monastic–a large cup of milk coffee and an apple. But you cannot really expect much for the token amount we paid for our board and I felt very much in a medieval frame of mind anyway. Everyone was quite cheerful, considering it was just after dawn, and we outside into the cold air we went.

At 6:30 am there was not much going on in Castrojeriz, needless to say. We wanted to take some photos but it was still too dark. We rode around the town in the cold morning air and headed south, where we found the ruins of the convent of San Francisco, which was, according to my guide book, “built over the former palace and gardens of Pedro el Cruel.” Now there’s a great name (although apologists tried to change it to “Pedro the Lawful”)and it turned out he was indeed a pretty nasty fellow. After betraying friends and foe equally, he ended up being murdered in 1369.

We rode back into Castrojeriz now that the light was much better and we looked at various churches, although of course at that time of day nothing was open. We were particularly impressed by the Iglesia de Santiago de los Caballeros, which was ruined but featured carved skulls to warn passers-by of death. Nearby was a fine statue of Santiago as a pilgrim, one of many we were to come across on this trip, and I took a nice picture of Max on his bicycle in front of it.

The road out of town crosses over the Río Odra on the San Miguel Bridge, which has some arches still from the 12 Century and then proceeds on what was a causeway built by the Romans across the marshy flatlands. We climbed a small hill and had a fine view of Castrojeriz behind us and ahead and to the left was the village of Castrillo de Matajudios, the birthplace of the 16th Century composer Antonio de Cabezon. But more interesting was the village of Itero del Camino, which had a charming 18th Century church, built from the rubble of the castle which had been constructed when the village was fortified in the Middle Ages to defend the wheat-rich region around it. Only a square tower remains from the castle and it was not in the best condition, albeit picturesque.

Max and I were very impressed with the wide-open vista. There were green fields on both sides of the ride, gently rolling as far as the eye could see. This wide agricultural plain was named by the Visigoths, who conquered Spain in the 5th Century, the Campi Gothorum, and it remains known today as either the Campos Góticos or the Tierra de Campos.

We passed another old village, Boabdilla del Camino, which dates back before the 10th Century at least, and rode alongside the Canal de Castilla. In the 1750s the Spanish began to construct a series of canals in the Tierra de Campos but by the time they were done five decades later railroads had supplanted water transport for heavy goods. Nonetheless, the Canal de Castilla was valuable for irrigation and power, roles which it continues to fulfill today.

We came to the outskirts of Frómista and stopped by an impressive series of locks. Although it is in the centre of the breadbasket of the Iberian Peninsula, it suffered economic decline after the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the loss of its role as an important regional market. The arrival of the canal in 1773 revived the area and it is again a prosperous agricultural centre.

There is not much remaining of old Frómista as it was mainly built in adobe since stone was scarce. However, it does boast the Iglesia de San Martín, a very striking church that was constructed beginning in 1066. It was meant to be something special on the Camino and was designed as a reduced-scale replica of the Cathedral in Jaca. The stone was brought in at great expense and the building is impressively decorated on the outside. We went inside and looked at the interior. It was rather simple but this may have been a result of later restoration. There was a nice 16th Century statue of Santiago Pelegrino to cheer us onwards.

In Frómista we saw much larger numbers of people than we had seen previously on the Camino, including several busloads of tourists. There were quite a few cyclists gathered around the church and I talked with an older couple. They were Dutch, and were riding enormous heavy black Dutch bicycles with full camping gear. To my astonishment, they had actually ridden all the way from Holland, taking more than two months already to reach Frómista. They said that it had been a pretty hard trip since it had rained more or less non-stop for about six weeks en route. They looked at my lightweight bicycle and the man voiced concerns about its durability for the Camino. I had to give them credit for their dedication, but I silently doubted if I would have been crazy enough to ride over the Roncesvalles Pass on a fifty pound bike with another fifty pounds of stuff on it.

We found a small store where we stocked up on our usual bread and cheese and fruit and drank some fruit juice while sitting on the curb. Frómista already seemed like the Big City after the places I had been through, and the road was definitely busier now. We travelled northwest now along the P980, an excellent road, passing several small villages. The traffic became quite a bit heavier as we came to Carrión de los Condes, at the intersection of P980 and the N120, an old friend we had least seen near Burgos.

Carrión de los Condes has quite a long and interesting history, having been occupied at various times by the Romans, the Visigoth and the Muslims, the last arriving around 713. During the Middle Ages it was one of the wealthiest and most important towns in north central Spain. The town appears in the epic about El Cid, a famous general from whom the Kings of Spain still trace their descent, and was described as the home of a nest of villainous counts who married and mistreated the Cid’s daughters. Hence the “de los Condes,” which means “of the Counts.”

The town features numerous examples of Castilian Romanesque architecture and we rode slowly by the Iglesia de Santa Mariá del Camino and the Iglesia de Santiago before crossing the Río Carríon, which was totally dry, over an impressive arched bridge before passing an old monastery, the Monasterio de San Zoila, founded in the 10th Century and which owned most of the town by the 13th. After a long decline, it was turned into a parador, one of the luxury hotels to be found in historic Spanish towns and villages.

We rode out of Carrión de los Condes and rather than follow N120 we decided to stick to the original pilgrims’ route, a path over crushed reddish gravel. The weather had been excellent but now we found ourselves in a treeless, desolate plain, with grain fields lining both sides of the Camino and the sun beating down ferociously. It was around 2:30 pm, the hottest time of the day, and as we rolled down the dusty road I felt sorry for the pilgrims on foot. For us the hard road, perhaps 30 kms, would be a reasonable ride but on foot it would take a good part of the day.

In addition to pilgrims on foot, we passed a French couple with a donkey, loaded up with their gear. I felt pretty confident on the loose gravel, but Max was slowing down so I said that I would cruise on ahead. I stopped for a cold drink at Calzadilla de la Cueza and waited for Max. As we continued, the road became paved again and I picked up the tempo a bit. I told him that I would go on to Sahagún, our next planned stop, and make sure that we had two places reserved before the walkers arrived instead of facing the situation we did in Castrogeriz. With my thin tires I was much faster on pavement than he was, and so I set off.

It was here that I discovered what European Union money can do. I was back on the N120, which was quite magnificent here. It was four lanes wide, with a green space dividing the directions and absolutely no traffic of any kind. I rode perhaps 15 kms on the freshly-paved stretch and was not passed by a single vehicle. I could not understand this since the road was clearly designed for heavy traffic but then I looked to the north and saw, perhaps 3 kms away, a limited access highway with lots of trucks on it. I was very grateful to the taxpayers of the EU who had funded two different roads going in the same direction and provided me with my own private highway, for at least a few hours.

I rolled happily into Sahagún, hot and sweaty but pleased with our progress. I found the signs directing me to the refugio quite easily but everything was locked up and would be for another hour. There was a rather modern statute of a pilgrim out front and I leaned my bike against the wall and read for a while until the door was unlocked and I could go in and reserve our spaces. Being so early, I was able to go and have a shower and find some good spots for us.

The refugio was the former Iglesia de la Trinidad and had been converted to become a gigantic dormitory. After locking up the bike on the ground floor and taking off the panniers, I walked up a big set of steps with several landings and found myself in a large room with a very high, vaulted ceiling and beds everywhere. There was a kitchen area as well as a few showers but it all seemed a bit cramped.

After my shower I waited for Max to arrive and a large number of pilgrims came in, hot and dusty from their long walk. The showers raised the humidity in the place and then some of the pilgrims, who I am certain were Danish, began to cook and the wretched smell of frying pork filled the whole place.

Max was pleased that I had booked us in but very soon after his arrival the place looked totally full. There were probably 200-250 beds and all were taken. After he cleaned up we went outside and looked around Sahagún, finding a grocery store and not much else, although the town was fairly large.

We sat in front of the refugio, wrote our postcards and chatted for a while. Max was missing his girlfriend in Barcelona and anxious to get to Santiago pretty quickly whereas I was starting to realize that as I became stronger and stronger each day on the bike I was covering distance much faster than I had planned. If I kept up the current rate of speed, I would arrive in Santiago much too early since I had a bus reservation for a particular day in order to get back to Bayonne for my flight home to Berlin. I decided that I would spend the next day in León and he was planning to ride through, so we planned to go as far as León together and then split up. This happens a lot on the Camino; I had already travelled with a Frenchman, a German, a Belgian and now an Argentinian.

Sleeping was not a great success. The pilgrims who were walking were always dead tired at the end of the day, even when it was not as hot as it was today. By 9 pm everyone was sweating on top of their bunks, the smell of greasy pork in the air, and as the first pilgrims fell asleep the snoring began. At first this caused some laughter from those still awake but we soon realized that the effect was amplified by the high arched ceiling and eventually the noise of the snoring began deafening. I had not planned on this but I began to realize that the refugios, while really cheap and part of the Camino experience, were perhaps not really for me. I would take my chances in León the next day and see what other accommodation I might find.

The Santiago Road: The Fifth Day

Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Santo Domingo de Calzada to Castrojeriz
134.82 km, total for trip 454.11 km

After getting up early and getting our bikes ready, Max and I decided to head off for the next town for breakfast. He is riding a mountain bike with a fair amount of baggage and even though he is much younger than I am I do not have any trouble keeping up with him on the Marinoni. We roll smoothly along our road, the N120, and chat when we can in a mixture of English and Spanish. The little town of Grañon is off to our left but it looks pretty inconsequential and we do not expect to find any place to eat there.

Belorado is a much more substantial place, with a large square in the centre of town. The town has a long history, having been settled in Roman times, and was a strategic location on the border between Castile and Rioja. It once was an important centre for the tanning industry but it did not look especially prosperous as we rolled into town. But we were able to find a café and sat outside, enjoying our coffee and sandwiches and the sunshine. Afterwards, we walked around the deserted square and looked at the Iglesia de San Pedro, which looked much newer than most of the churches we had seen during our ride. This was not surprising as it was rebuilt in the 17th Century, making it a comparatively modern structure!

Pilgrims walking

The road began to climb gently once we left Belorado and crossed the Tirón River, passing through the villages of Tosanto and Espinosa del Camino. The walking trail for the pilgrims ran parallel to us, sometimes right next to the road, sometimes off in the distance. There was more traffic than I would have liked on this route and almost all of it was big transport trucks.

At Villafranca de Montes de Oca we took a break in a parking lot next to the Iglesia de Santiago, which was built in 1800, replacing another old structure. Although the town was once quite an important stopping point on the Camino, almost nothing is left to look at. The castle, the hospital–just ruins now. The town only has about 200 residents, so when we left the population dropped significantly.

The landscape here is scrubby, rolling hills, with pine and oak trees. Apparently, pilgrims could not locate any landmarks around here and the historical accounts describe them getting lost, and also talk of the wild animals and thieves. It was here that an uprising against the Republic government took place in July 1936, with horrific slaughter, and large numbers of bodies were dumped in the area. A small monument marks the murder of men from Burgos.

I was a lot more concerned about the trucks since the shoulder was not very wide and the flow of traffic was quite steady. After an enjoyable but brief descent the road began to climb steadily for 4-5 kms and with some effort, not having climbed very much since Roncesvalles, I made it up to the top and waited for Max. We had reached the Puerto de la Pedraja which, at 1150 m, divides the watersheds of the Ebro, which flows to the Mediterranean and the Duero, which heads to Portugal and empties into the Atlantic.

We continued along the N120 for another 10 kms or so and turned off the busy road at Santovenia de Oca, heading northwest. We found ourselves once again in deserted countryside, under blue skies with yellow rapeseed blossoms on both sides of the ride. In Atapuerca we saw a lovely 15th C. church, dedicated to San Martín, and rode around the little village, finding a comfortable spot near the church where we ate our bread and cheese. It looked as if it could be a scene from the medieval high time of the pilgrimage, until we noticed a sign for an Internet café!

Atapuerca was one of the earliest town to be taken by the Reconquista, and by 750 there was a significant Christian population. The Camino continues along the top of the limestone Atapuerca Massif and you get an excellent view of the vast flat plains ahead, and a panoramic view of Burgos off to the west.

Our rural road joined the N1 and I was apprehensive that we would have very heavy traffic going into Burgos but this was not the case as thanks to EU money a divided highway could be seen in the distance and it was where all the cars were. We were not on the Camino as it crossed fields going into Burgos but we had an excellent ride along the smooth pavement of the empty road. It was getting very hot as we entered Burgos.

Views of Burgos

Burgos was totally deserted as we rode along the river and into the Plaza Mayor. The sun was blazing down as we came up to the huge white cathedral, whose first stone was laid in 1221. The structure, which only took a mere 23 years to build, continued to be enlarged for the next five centuries. We got off of our bikes and walked around a bit, looking also at the nearby chapels, also all white with soaring arches. Then, because it was so hot–Burgos citizens have a saying about their weather: “nine months of winter, three months of hell”-- we wandered off for ice cream.

Since everything was locked up as tight as a drum in Burgos and we felt pretty good, Max and I decided to continue riding westwards. In retrospect, we should have stayed a day in Burgos and looked at all of the old buildings as it is the city along the Camino that has the most art. At one point in the 15th Century, the city had no fewer than 32 pilgrim hospices. In any event, we rode off along the banks of the Río Arlanzón towards more adventure. We stopped briefly at a large refugio where there were some other cyclists that Max had ridden with previously and we chatted with them but we thought it was too early in the day to stop.

I had foreseen the next difficulty when I was plotting the route at home: the road out of Burgos quickly becomes a limited access highway and I already had enough experience with riding on one of these to last for the trip. I had plotted a route that ran fairly close to the original Camino but would take us a bit to the north. We took a minor road that soon turned into fine gravel and then dust as it led us through Hornillos del Camino. There were a few spots where the gravel was so loose we had to push the bikes for short distances, but we were in good spirits in spite of the heat. The landscape was very open and while there were few trees it was quite scenic. In spite of the thinner (25 mm) tires on my bike I had no difficulty staying with Max on his mountain bike but if the path would have deteriorated further I would have had problems. As it was, we had a real feel, out on the dusty track in the empty countryside, of what it must have been like for the pilgrims of old.

Iglesia

We came to the village of Iglesia and had a nice paved road again. Max was tiring and we had some large climbs ahead and I waited on top for a while near Castellanos de Castro. It was nearly 6 pm and the air was cooling nicely. The sun’s rays had become a soft gold colour, and I took some photos to take advantage of the light.

Max eventually rolled up and then we enjoyed the best section of the trip so far, a 13 km gentle downhill on an excellent empty paved road that let us coast and admire the scenery. To the right was the village of Hontanos, but we ignored the refugio sign and continued onwards.


We came to San Antón, and admired the ruins of what had been a monastery and a hospital, established in 1146 but the remains date mainly from three centuries later. There is a wonderful archway spanning the Camino, and when pilgrims arrived too late to enter the hospice they would sleep underneath this. Each evening the monks laid out food for them in niches in the wall. But now only a warm wind blew and the rest is silence.

Soon our destination for the night, Castrojeriz, came into view. It was quite spectacular, and the road led past a fortified hill. In its heyday the town boasted five churches and seven pilgrim hospices. The castle overlooking the town is actually pre-Roman in origin; Visigoths built on the site later and subsequently it was battled over by Muslims and Christians.

Our host in Castrogeriz

We followed the sign to the refugio, which was fairly high up in town and required some more climbing, but when we got there we discovered it was packed with pilgrims and there was no place for us. In fact, one of the women staying there was quite unpleasant about it. On the way up, I had noticed a sign for another refugio. We returned there and the jolly man running the place said there was space for us. I think he may have been a farmer and was renting out space–at 5 Euros each!–for a bit of extra income. It was quite small but Max and I found a room with two beds and unpacked out stuff. Several other pilgrims arrived soon afterwards but I think we were only about seven in all, unlike the big place up the hill. The shower was cold (really cold, actually) but after our 130 km of riding in the heat and the dust this did not matter so much. After getting cleaned up, we shared our bread and cheese and water and then it was lights out. We all slept the sleep of the just.

The Santiago Road: The Fourth Day

Above San Millán

Monday, May 27, 2002
Logroño to Santo Domingo de Calzada 67.92 km,
total for trip 319.29 km

My experience coming into both Pamplona and Logroño was that the outskirts of large Spanish cities are really dreadful and no pleasure to cycle. This was confirmed when I left Logroño and, successfully following the signs taking me in the correct direction, I soon found myself riding the shoulder of a limited-access highway, completely illegal in Spain. Even worse, I was riding into a headwind and the road seemed only to go up. This continued for an interminable 11 kms. Just before it ended, I regained my composure by having breakfast at a highway rest stop but was glad that I was able to get onto the smaller N 120 road soon afterwards. On the highway, I had been passed by a number of police cars but they seemed to be escorting buses and paid me no attention.

I followed the N 120, which was not a terribly interesting road and then soon found myself riding with the three Asturians again but we did not speak a lot because of the effort of fighting the wind. I parted company from them again when I turned south near Nájera. My guidebook suggested that I should go to San Millán de la Cogolla where the monastery was a part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and as the route ran along quiet country streets I thought this detour would be worthwhile. However, even though the hills made it a bit more difficult than I had expected, the massive headwind slowed my speed down to almost nothing. When I rode through the town of Cardenas, I actually rode downhill in one of my lowest gears, usually reserved for going up mountains. And the wind howled so much I could hardly hear anything.

By the time I reached San Millán I was quite tired, even though it was only about 18 kms from the N 120. There was a little road behind the village that was supposed to take me to San Millán de Suso where the famous 6th Century hermit San Millán was born, and where he died a century later. But the road went uphill with much more enthusiasm than I could muster. It did give me a view over the village and past the monastery to the impressive mountains behind. There was even snow on one of the peaks, San Lorenzo. I took some pictures and decided to roll down into the village and look around. This was San Millán de Yuso. No confusion here.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered all the buses, and their police escorts, that had overtaken me on the highway had occupied the entire village. The story was that the EU Ministers of Public Works were meeting in Spain and were making a visit to San Millán. The Spanish unions of public servants had organized the buses for a political rally and now the streets of the little village where totally jammed with office workers with signs. They were in a good mood, however, so I was not very worried. I locked the bike up to a post and began to walk. With all the demonstrators, it was a bit difficult to walk through the streets to the monastery. And the village only seemed to have two streets altogether. But when I finally did make it there, I found the monastery surrounded by armed police who were obviously the ministerial escort. So much for my detour.

The monastery in the village became a going concern in the late 11th Century when the upper monastery was deserted and the relics of San Millán brought down from the hill. Under the Benedictine Order the monastery grew and was rebuilt between the 16th and 18th Centuries. It looks massive for such a small village and was perhaps too much in the end. The Benedictines moved out in the 19th Century but other monks have more recently returned to inhabit the building. My guidebook refers to the “interminably long guided tour” so perhaps I did have something to thank the EU Ministers for after all.

After having some bread and cheese and a lot of water, I prepared to ride into the hellish wind again. The scenery was wonderful, but difficult to enjoy and I moved up and down the hills at a snail’s pace. I crawled through Villar de Torre and then soon after saw a big sign marking the location of an 11th Century convent. “Well, that’s what I am here for!,” I thought, and turned eastwards, out of the wind at last.

A short ride of 5 kms took me to Cañas where a Cistercian convent had been founded in 1170. It had flourished through the Middle Ages–apparently St. Francis of Assisi had stayed there on his pilgrimage--but then fell into ruin. It was restored after 1945 and reoccupied. It was my luck that it was time to restore it again or something since most of the building was surrounded by scaffolding. Nothing in sight was open and it did not look as if tourists were abundant. I had the feeling I was the only person in Spain.

Turning west again, the short 5 kms became a very long ride into the wind. I was in gently rolling green farmland, but it all looked a bit desolate. There were no houses and almost no trees. It was so tiring for me to ride up a tiny hill near Manzanares that I actually got off the bike and walked for a few minutes to get my breath back. It was embarrassing to think that I had crossed the Pyrenees without too much trouble yet was crushed by this molehill.

The road now ran downhill and soon I was on the outskirts of a real town, Santo Domingo de la Calzada. I passed a carwash. And some warehouses. And then I was on an ancient street of a town that really owes its existence to the Camino de Santiago.

Until the engineer-monk St. Dominic arrived, there was nothing much here on the banks of the River Oja. The Camino, passing from Nájera through swamps and forests was exposed to bandits and was considered one of the most dangerous stretches for pilgrims. Domingo García, born in the area around 1019, had been a shepherd but turned to the monastic life. He did poorly in his studies at San Millán and was not allowed to continue, so he chose the life of a hermit instead. After a time in the forests along the Oja, he turned to assisting pilgrims and improving their travel conditions. Beginning with improvements to the local roads, he went on build a famous 24-arch stone bridge over the Oja and a small village grew up around a hospice he organized in an old ruined fort.

St. Dominic was long in his grave when a legend became attached to him in the 12th Century. An innocent German pilgrim who rejected the local innkeeper’s daughter’s advances was framed for theft and hanged. A month later his family arrived to collect his body from the gibbet and were astonished to see that he was still alive and in good spirits, due to the intervention of St. James or, in other versions, St. Dominic. The family rushed to the presiding magistrate was eating his dinner and told him that their son was still alive. Gesturing at his meal, he scoffed and said that the son was as alive as his roasted chickens. Whereupon the chickens reassembled themselves, feathers and all and flew off cackling. A pair of white chickens are kept in a coop in the cathedral and there were some being kept at the hostel I stayed in that evening. The town coat-of-arms also bears white chickens proudly upon it.

Bustling Santo Domingo

Until I arrived in Santo Domingo, I was not aware that the pilgrimage route had made significant changes to any cityscape. The town was clearly built along an east-west axis as I did not have to deviate from the Camino as I rode directly into town. The town, with its sand-coloured buildings and quiet streets, was appealing enough that I considered quitting for the day although I had not even ridden 70 kms. But the wind had made the ride so arduous (not to mention the morale-sapping highway out of Logroño) that I thought I would allow myself the luxury of stopping in mid-afternoon and doing nothing. I was dirty and windblown and exhausted and felt enough like a genuine pilgrim for one day.

As I was thinking these thoughts and riding gently down the main street, protected from the wind by the low buildings, I saw a refugio sign on the left and pulled over to a large building that appeared to be a convent. Leaning the bike against the wall and putting myself into a slightly better appearance, I approached the Nun On Duty at the window and asked if there were any beds for the night. Unfortunately, the refugio was full, to my surprise given the early time of day, but I thanked her anyway and decided to think up an alternative. There was a fountain and a courtyard, so I sat down and took out some bread and cheese and made a sandwich.

A moment later, I was delighted to see the three Asturians ride into town. I had parted from them near Nájera earlier in the day and I am certain that they did not have much fun grinding into the wind with their heavily-burdened bicycles. They pulled off the road and joined me and we chatted in our limited mutual vocabulary.

The refugio

They planned to press ahead as there was still lots of light but I had had enough. After we parted, I rode down the street a little further and discovered a second refugio, a large old building from the mid-19th Century on the right side. There would be space here for me, I was pleased to learn, and I had my pass stamped.

I unloaded the bicycle and set up my sleeping bag and panniers next to my bed. Then I got back on the Marinoni and rode back out of town the way I had come to the car wash. Luckily I had enough small change that I could use the car wash and rinse off my poor bicycle, dusty where it was not spattered with mud and, uh, agricultural detritus, to be delicate. For inexperienced cyclists reading this, a high-pressure hose works very well, but should be used with great care on a bicycle as aiming it at the hubs or bottom bracket could blow out all the grease in the bearings, resulting in a short and expensive ride the next day. But a few minutes’ work suffice to bring back Signore Marinoni to his sparkling best self. Without the burdens of the panniers and handlebar bag, the bicycle felt so fleet and responsive and we joyfully zipped back to the refugio at racing speed. After a welcome shower and an attempt to do my laundry, I was refreshed and relaxed and ready to look at the town. The heat of the afternoon had passed as we moved into early evening and the weather was much nicer. And the wind had thankfully died down.

The cathedral

Well, there is not a whole lot to see in Santo Domingo de la Calzada. There is an impressive cathedral, built in differing styles from 13th Century Romanesque to Baroque. St. Dominic had built the first church on the site and the current building has gone through several cycles of decay and restoration. Strangely, the tower of the cathedral stands alone across the street, unattached to the principal building. Nearby is the impressive hospice which replaced St. Dominic’s basic original structure in the 15th Century and served pilgrims for a further 300 years before falling into disrepair. It has been rebuilt as part of the Spanish national parador system of luxury hotels.

Around the corner was what looked like the city hall on a large open square. The demonstrators that I had seen at San Millán were here as well to protest the EU Ministers, but I avoided them and headed in the other direction. This gave me a chance to find a grocery store, where I stocked up on the inevitable bread and cheese and chocolate, along with a few big bottles of mineral water and some fruit. I even found postcards of Santo Domingo and spent the evening writing them out. I also chatted with other pilgrims, including a husband-and-wife team from Germany, and talked at some length with Max, a young Argentinian living in Barcelona. He was riding a mountain bike and not adverse to some company on the road, so we decided to head out together the next day.

The hostel gradually filled up with hikers and more cyclists but it was not uncomfortable and, exhausted as I was, I had an excellent night’s sleep for a change.