Favourite things and places

[sillydoll]

A few months ago we asked for members to list their favourite things and places on the camino. This is the list I compiled from all the replies. Please feel free to add to it if your favourite place/person/albergue etc is not on the list.

90 year old Felisa who offered "Figs, water and love' (Higos-Agua y Amor) on the way to Logrono.
After climbing back up onto the meseta and looking back at Castrojeriz
Ages and Anja and her snail "stamp".
Alto del Perdon - metal sculptures & wind turbines
Amazing sky at dusk after a thunderstorm in O Cebreiro
Arrive to Santiago under a big storm after a very hot and sunny day with Kim
Arriving in Mansilla after spending the night in the rain on the Roman road.
Azofra where Maria presented chilled wine
Azqueta where I got my new pole and got walking lessons from Pablo
Bought sweets from the closed Santa Clara nuns in Castrojeriz
Burgos cathedral
Church of San Juan (its tiny) in Furelos
Church of Santa Maria during vespers in Rabanal
Coming out of the fog and hearing Tomas ringing his bell of welcome
Coming out of the trees and seeing San Juan de Ortega in the distance
Cooking a meal and sharing a sing song with other pilgrims in Hornillos in 1997
Crossing the Pyrenees under a bright blue skies
Cruz de Ferro
Eating wonderful trout in Hospital de Orbigo
El Cid's tomb in Burgos Cathedral
Estella - Sitting near the river
Estella - the church cloisters of San Pedro de la Rua
Eunate Church
Eunate in a field of sunflowers
Hospital de Orbigo, sitting under the wonderful bridge beside the river
Ibaneta Pass - after climbing from St Jean
In the Beech woods leading down to Roncesvalles
Irache - water or wine fountain
James (?) coffee stall in the tiny adobe village of Moratinos
Jesus Jato
Jesus, a Spanish man who was walking so that his daughter with Down Syndrome
Jose and company in Ruitelan
Knowing that I can always come back and do it again
Learning that there are no coincidences
Leon- stained glass windows in the cathedral at midnight
Marie-Noel in Burgos (just in time for Easter Processions).
Medieval buildings and monuments
Meeting by accident in 1998 Pilgrims I had met in 1997 and again in 2000
Meseta when the poppies are in full bloom and the fields of them dance before you in the breeze
Molinaseca - The Bridge
Monastery of Santa Maria the cloisters in particular in Najera
Monjadin, Ventosa, and Hornillos
O'Cebreiro
Pilgrim Blessing in Los Arcos
Platanus and Chestnut trees
Ponferrada - the Templar Castle
Priest Jose Maria in San Juan de Ortega showing us the altar in the almost derelict monastery
Roncesvalles pilgrim's mass
Santo Domingo del Calzada where the rooster crowed
Sheep
St Jean at sunset
Stained Glass windows in Leon cathedral
Staying with the nuns in Carrion de Los Condes.
The 500m marker outside Hontanos, and no sign of human habitation
The bar at Hornillos where I had the best Pilgrim meal I had on the Camino
The beautiful town of Molinaseca and the converted church refugio
The climb up to O'Cebreiro and the church
The Cock and the Hen in Santo Domingo
The cuckoo bird
The forests between Roncesvalles and Pamplona
The Meseta
The monastery in Samos
The mountains
The perfect paella in Arzua
The Pilgrim Blessing at Carrion de los Condes, a most emotional and inclusive blessing
The setting sun and storm in Fisterra
The storks
The village somewhere on the Meseta whose church bells sounded just like Big Ben
The wonderful hospitaleros, especially those at Villamajor de
Track down to Molinaseca from Riego when the white cistus is in bloom
Track to O Cebreiro after Herrerias especially the yellow broom
Unconditional love and help given to me by pilgims and Spaniards alike
Walking through fields of poppies, and other wild flowers we don't see in Australia
Walking up to "Hemingway's Hostal" in Burgette

 

[KiwiNomad06]

Thanks Sil

Thanks Sil for all the wonderful contributions you make to this board.
It will be April next year before I start walking from Le Puy, but I have begun making annotations of people's suggestions in my guidebook.

I love the range of ideas on this list. It is interesting that sometimes the simplest of human encounters are what stay in the memory. I remember one day in the Loire last year I passed an elderly man in the street who had just been picking fresh strawberries. He offered me one. The kind gesture made it the sweetest strawberry I have ever eaten in my life.

 

[Minkey]

Looking back over SJPdP

The sight of Roncesvalles after a long hard day of walking!

Cizur Menor

Puente le Reina - The municipal refugio and the bridge

Watching swallows dive bombing for insects only centimetres from the ground in Estella

The reservoir outside Logrono where I met my friends Denis and Elisa

Getting to Najera (eventually) having seen it from a distance for ages! Meeting my friend Conor in the refugio

Santo Domingo - The small square outside the refugio, meeting a gentleman who'd walked from Grenada, through to Santiago and going backwards towards Lourdes... He was kind, gentle, open... and seemed to speak every language under the sun, whilst eating and talking in the garden next to the chickens!

Burgos itself and the Cathedral... and having my first posh meal (as in not the menu) for about 13 days!

Tardajos for the refugio, the gentle hospitalero who helped whenever he could.

Castrojeriz was a lovely little town with a nice refugio and at the time was self running due to the death of the hospitalero (I think - my Spanish is a bit rubbish)...

Looking at the scenery from the hill after Castrojeriz - The tops of the hills all reach the same level - you can see how the landscape has changed! Looks cool.

The church in Fromista - Nice church, rubbish town!

Carrion de los Condes - Having been without my luggage from the off, I had to buy clothes whilst in spain. Carrion's market sells some good, cheap pants! Very handy!

Astorga - Beautiful town, lovely architecture, and an amazing private refugio. Ok, it's €7 but I think it's worth it for the salt and vinegar water foot bath!

Foncebadon - Read all my other rants about how peaceful it is... and the stars...........

La Faba - Having been the victim of dodgy tortillaitis, I chose not to try to get to O Cebriero and stayed in La Faba. A small village with a tiny shop. You can whip up some pasta and just chill out before doing the 5k up to O Cebriero the morning after. Bearing in mind it's all downhill to Triacastela I think that's quite sensible.

Triacastela - Having the bacon and eggs in the bar on the main drag with my friend Tobias whilst waiting to see if my friends Ben and Tony had carried on (Ben was also ill from Tortilla problems) Again opted to stay in the private accomodation that night.

Barbadelo - Basic kinda place but I enjoyed the fact that there was a van, in a field selling food and beer Sadly the "cheesecake" in the bar up the road was flan in disguise! Nice meatballs though.


Hospital de la Cruz - Pulpo, pulpo, pulpo... and a very nice bar!

Santiago - a small, virtually unheard of town in NW Spain. There's a big churchy type building that seems quite popular

 

[John Hussey]

The Sea in the Distance

After the emotion of Santiago, I'd have to add that tantalizing, far off glimpse of the sea, walking down from the hills before Cee, after having walked from France to get there. Then, hovering around that tiny fire in the cold and dark, slightly down toward the sea from the top of Finisterre that final night. That was an emotional experience I shall never forget.

 

[Yctoo]

The older Spanish woman in a cafe on the Camino Ingles who lifted every pilgrims feet onto a foot stool while we drank coffee. Such overwhelming kindness