Albergues along the Camino

When we told folks about walking the Camino, many of you asked where we would be staying. For the most part, we are staying in albergues, which are much like hostels.

There are albergues run by the municipality, by the church (at least we think that´s what ´parochial´ means) or privately run. We´ve stayed in municipal ones and private ones.

Our favourites so far are the ones run by volunteers. The huge dorm in Roncesvalles is a municipal albergue, run by Dutch volunteers. They were so friendly and helpful. See all the boots, which must always be left at the door. The building itself was originally a medieval pilgrim hospital, so it has served pilgrims for many, many years. In Pamplona we stayed at a small, municipal albergue, run by German volunteers. They are members of a fraternity and the (generally retired) men come and stay for three weeks to welcome Pilgrims, check them in, provide information about Pamplona, including good places to eat where there are Pilgrim menus (i.e. hearty and cheap) and make breakfast in the mornings. Tonight (May 28) we are in Santo Domingo de la Calzada where we are again in a large (about 150 beds, plus overflow) municipal albergue, this one run by Canadian volunteers. The facilites here are very good! Santo Domingo, in fact, was sainted for all he did for Pilgrims back in his day (11th century).

In Villamayor de Montjardin we stayed in an albergue, an old, refurbished village house, also run by Dutch volunteers. The volunteer organization, however, is a different one from that of the Roncesvalles albergue. It´s an ecumenical group; in addition to the usual duties, they prepare supper and breakfast for the Pilgrims, with grace offered before supper. On the day we were there, we met them on their way out to the fields to pick fresh herbs for the salad. They also host a time of meditation in the evening which we found very meaningful.

In Lorca we stayed in a private albergue, 36 beds in a restored stone building. It was very fine, but did not have the ambiance and friendliness of the others.

In Viana, we stayed in a very large, municipal albergue that was originally a monestary. The bunks were three tiers high!! Unfortunately for us, we came in a bit late that day and both were assigned third level beds!

Speaking of beds, we´ll head off for now.

We continue to enjoy your comments. We´ve learned how to insert pictures, so there are a few in our previous posts; have a look.

Sunday, May 23

Greetings. We have free internet today, so we thought we would write a quick update.

We had a great day again, the weather was gorgeous. It was cool in the morning, warming up to hot by noon. After filling our waterbottles with cold, fresh water at the local town fountain, we set off at 7:15. The scenery was again lovely, rolling hills with grain fields, vineyards and olive groves. No cows or sheep anymore. The sound of cowbells has given way to the sound of cuckoo birds. There are still lots of wildflowers, we have tried to take pictures of the different kinds. Somehow we ended up with more pictures of the brilliant red poppies than anything else. We will post some pictures when we figure out a way to do that. We also walked on an old old Roman road today and across several Roman bridges. We saw a pelican sitting on its nest on top of a bell tower.

The path was, for the most part, up and down through the countryside though we passed through 6 towns. In Puente la Reine we had our picture taken with St. James himself and had cafe con leche, sitting in a little sidewalk cafe in one of the narrow little streets. We had ice cream and a picnic lunch in Ciraqui; the church bell was just chiming noon as we came into town.

We have again met a number of interesting people, including a young man from Romania. He claims to be one of only two pilgrims from there. Canada, on the other hand, is well represented on the Camino, as is Germany and Australia.

Till next time; we are off for another Peregrino supper.