Iron Man

Ok. I know, it wasn´t a big walk today. 16km. Yes I´m ashamed. But this is the last ´big´city I´ll be in before Santiago. So I need to resupply. I needed to get more money from the bank, get some more reading material and relax, a little!

I brought a book along to read, The Gospel according to Chris Moyles, which isn´t a religious book by any stretch of the imagination. It is an autobiography of a Radio 1 Breakfast DJ for those back home. Not the most endorsed book from a pilgrimage but not quite as bad as the guy back in Carrion de los Condes reading The God Delusion! So when I reach a big town I try to find a copy of The Sun. It´s usually a few days old but I never really find that there´s that much news in it anyway. I once had the choice of The Sun of Daily Telegraph but I thought I´d at least read all of The Sun.

I think I´m up to 1002 photos so far!

So I left El Acebo and made my way to the town I thought was El Acebo yesterday but was infact 3.5km further on. After that I made my way to Molinaseca which was one of the most beautiful villages I´ve passed through on the Camino. It was splendid. I sat and had a coffee and ice-cream and took photos. (I think I´m up to 1002 photos for this trip alone now!)

I walked into Ponferrada and after stopping and chatting to M&D at a net cafe, decided to stay for the day. Ponferrada, as you might have guessed means ´bridge of iron´ which isn´t that special these days but back in the 12thC when it was made, was quite a luxery as you needed have a large source of iron, hence the towns main industry, iron mining. I´ve walked past a castle and other interesting things but as it´s the siesta at the moment, most things are shut so I´ll let you know about them tomorrow. I´m hoping to make it to a place called O Cebreiro tomorrow as it is the first town in Galecia which is the county that Santiago is in. I´ve been in Castilla y Leon for over a week now and am eager to move to the next country.

I´m not sure if I´ve explained this yet but the word Camino is Spanish for Way so Camino de Santiago is Spanish for The St. James Way.

Also Santiago is Spanish for St. James and Compostela means Field of Stars. So Santiago de Compostela literally means St. James in the Field of Stars.

A brief history, after St. James was decapitated in the Holy Land, his body was taken by his followers to the shores where an angel was waiting with a boat. The angel guided the boat to a place called Padron on the West Coast of Spain and he was identified as being the saint by a small group of people and buried in a tomb in a field not far from there. Many years later, someone was guided to the area by a cicle of stars that hovered over a field and this person found the body of Saint James and they built a Cathedral over the site, much like The Vatican. This is a very rough translation and I´m sure once I reach Santiago, I´ll have one that looks like more research has been done in preparing it.

This was just a short update so I felt the need to make it a bit larger.

So until tomorrow...