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Santo Domingo de la Calzada → Belorado 21.6 km (13.4 mi) |
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¡Olé, todos!
Today’s a short day! That means we all decided to cut today’s distance from 35K to 21K! That’s huge! I was so excited that I busted out of the door and into the gray!
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Without realizing it, I nearly stumbled right out of La Rioja! It turns out that Santo Domingo is only two towns away from the border of the next autonomous community, Castilla y León, and its first province: Burgos. It took me a while to understand the divisions here, since La Rioja and Navarra didn’t have additional subdivisions, but I think I’ve finally got it!
Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities, 9 of which are further divided into provinces. The Camino Francés passes through four autonomous communities (Navarra, La Rioja, Castilla y León, and Galicia) and seven provinces (Navarra, La Rioja, Burgos, Palencia, León, Lugo, and A Coruña)! You could compare them to states and counties in the US, though for some reason it feels weird to say I’m walking across four states! This is the largest, and in some ways, most challenging of the autonomous communities, so I’m glad to be easing into it!
Until recently, the provinces of Burgos and Palencia were part of Castilla, while the province of León was part of, well, León. There is still a lot of contention over the “y” in Castilla y León, which is visible in the graffiti (“León Solo”). Originally, León and Castilla were different kingdoms, which, though allied with each other, had different flags, currency, and even languages (Castilian and Leonese) for centuries. In 1983, when the Spanish government split the region of Castilla into smaller parts, it attached six new provinces to historic León, sort of like what happened in Czechoslovakia, Hungary-Romania, and Israel-Palestine. Needless to say, blending the two was about as easy as pushing two positive ends of a magnet together! National identity is something to be treated with great care!
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Two towns into Burgos, I entered Viloria de Rioja, known as the birthplace of Santo Domingo! It was actually more moving for me to be in the birthplace of a saint than in the place where he performed his miracles, and not just because of the playground! I think that’s because this tiny, humble town produced someone extraordinary. Here, he had his first lessons in how to be a good person. Here, he learned to work hard for something greater! I hope that being here will give me the strength I need to do great things too!
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As if they heard me, the clouds parted as I left Viloria and headed down toward the highway, which was my companion for the remainder of what became a hot afternoon. I was the tallest thing on this part of the route, which meant no shade! I started counting the distance markers on the road: 5K, 4K, 3K… That 3K was darn long! I kept waiting and hoping for a 2, just one little 2, until suddenly, Belorado appeared!
Belorado turned out to be an excellent place to spend an afternoon. The whole town was alive with people, even though it was a Sunday, and the Plaza Mayor with its many sycamores turned out to be the perfect spot to take a snooze in the sun, especially since I’d arrived at 1:00, an hour before the albergue even opened!
As a border town between old Navarra and Castilla, Belorado owes its existence to its strategic position in the valley of the Rio Ebro. It is a thoroughly organized town, which invited people from many different backgrounds but made sure the Jews lived in the Jewish District and the Moors in the Moorish District. It even had a series of caves on the cliff over the town for the hermits. Maybe that was the Hermit District! Belorado is so well organized, in fact, that each of its two churches is specifically designated for a certain part of the year:
| Summer in Santa María! | Winter in San Pedro! |
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The Albergue Cuatro Cantones was organized too, but in a bizarre way: the beds were on the other side of the kitchen and the bathroom! Nonetheless, it was good to put down the backpack and spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the sun and tapas. Then, surprises upon surprises, Serge and Didier appeared, having marched 40K from Nájera to Belorado! Despite that, they were as lively as ever! Kudos to them! Tomorrow, we’ll all be back to longer days, but for now, this beaver is going to immerse himself in an important part of Spanish culture: the siesta!
Buen Camino!
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Total Distance Walked: 237.7 km (141.4 mi) |
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