Astorga: The Cathedral

From Las Medulas we drove on, in ever increasing heat, to Astorga and its aire de camping-cars, which happily provided a bit of desperately-needed shade. Initially, our interest in Astorga was to see the Gaudi palace there, an episcopal palace whose design he worked on from 1889, very early in his career; before he was Gaudi, you might say. But there was much more of interest as it all unfolded and tied so many things together.

Over the years we have camped in aires and campgrounds by racetracks, olympic
sites, futbol stadia, piscinae, alpine ski jumps, and more; Astorga was our first bull
ring, however

City walls, Gaudi's episcopal palace, and behind it the cathedral

Roman bits uncovered by the walls

Astorga is on the Frances Camino Santiago, so we felt right at home, except that
my blister is now nearly healed

Inside the very late Gothic 

As with most Spanish cathedrals, any view of the thing is obscured/prohibited
by the choir, an actual large building smack in the middle, and the screen,
which prevented us knaves in the nave from seeing all the hocus-pocus the
priests were up to; but this is the 21st century, and CCTV screen lets us see all

Elevation

The choir building; plus men in black now shooing us tourists out; it was
Annuniciation,  or Assumption, or the Inquisition or something, and major
festivities were about to begin

So we went outside to admire all the sandstone carving

And watch the Caminantes arriving

Fun was about to begin

Arrival of the town band

Really tying things together: as a former oboist I was
astounded to see the band had not one but two marching 
oboists, who cheerfully posed; I have seen marching
bassoonists, but never marching oboists; notice their reeds
are removed and carefully protected

Arrival of the colors

Arrival of military types; we think the very interesting head-gear worn by the
general on the right is actually the summer version of a Darth Vader helmet

Arrival of the bishop/cardinal/whatever

The Holy Mobile that was to be paraded about town after
the Mass

Exterior view of cathedral

Caminante atop the tower

Las Medulas: Roman Strip Mining

We proceeded on, breaking camp on Friday the 16th, heading past Valenca across the river to Tui and Spain and then to old friend O Porrino, for groceries and recharging our Spanish simcards and mifi. And from there we drove further east, into the mountains, to Monforte de Lemos and its nice aire on the river. And from there, next day, we drove on to Las Medulas, yet another World Heritage site, one of many in Spain, and the largest of Rome's gold mining undertakings. The day was warm, then hot, but we persevered.

At the aire in Monforte de Lemos

Nice view

But too hot to visit

Las Medulas is an extensive site, as one might expect of strip mining operations

Yeah, the Camino Santiago (Frances) passes through here;
it will be days before we're off it; happily, not on foot anymore,
however

Nice life-sized dioramas in the museum; memo to self: whatever you do in the
next life, do not be a Roman slave; actually, don't be a slave, except possibly a
sex slave...

Artifacts

Helpful model: essentially it was placer mining...they tunneled into the soft rock,
flooded the tunnels until the mountain burst, then picked through the detritus;
"mountain ruining" they called it; the big achievement was the hydraulic
engineering, that is, getting the water into the tunnels; the Romans were good at
moving water

Sluices also a  major part of it

At the resto next to the museum; "hail, Caesar!" "hail, yes!" (favorite line from
junior high school; I played Cassius in the school play; no one would accuse me
now of having a lean and hungry look; OK, maybe hungry)

Major ruined mountain

For some reason, the camera again switched on to Etkachrome
mode

Ruined landcape

Exposed tunnels

More ruined landscape

Tunnel opening overlook

Click to enlarge and read Pliny the Elder's description of all this, which is
actually interesting

We might have gone on a tunnel tour, but it would have been an hour's wait
in the heat

So I got one for the road and we proceeded on; note the composition of the rock...
basically mud with nuggets of this and that, including, once, some gold

Vicki was particularly impressed with the overhanging buildings in one of the
villages, which caused us to swing wide on the 12% grade

We proceeded on, dreaming of shade

Camino Santiago Portuguese, 9: After-pix And After-thoughts

So we are four days off the Camino now, sitting in the aire de camping-cars in Leon, trying to beat the heat, finishing the Camino blogposts, and watching countless Caminantes amble through the city, which is on the more popular Frances route of the Camino. Hundreds of them. We are pleased to have done what we have done of the Camino Santiago. It is not without its defects, but they are well known, even the Portuguese version, and we would do it again. Of course, we were very lucky on the timing, the weather, the accommodations, our own health, planning, gear, and so on. For three days now, Vicki has been talking about doing the Frances Camino, or more. The whole enchilada, as it were. I maintain, somewhat uncharacteristically, that you don't have to drink the whole bottle to know it's a VSOP or a Grand Cru. If we were to do it again, maybe we'd do it earlier in the year, from Porto, the coastal Portuguese route up to where it merges with the central route. FWIW. Vicki will have more to say on these matters and on the practical aspects of the Camino on our website.

Few Caminantes do the whole pilgrim costume, in our experience, but most
everyone dangles the scallop shells--Coquilles St. Jacques-- off their back-packs;
here are our scaled-down versions, scaled- down in view of our backa-packa
concern with weight

My completed credencial; two stamps a day, plus Lisbon

My compostela; notice it's in Latin; with this I get half time
off in Purgatory, plus a free drink at the Vatican City Hard
Rock Cafe; so the guy said

The real reward: stickers, magnets, pins, book-marks, and
patches for our back-packs; certainly more than we've acquired
for any of our previous treks (all purchased, of course)