We are half way to Santiago, the city that is named after Saint James, the patron saint of Spain. He’s the patron saint of Portugal too but there they call him São Tiago, derived from the Hebrew name Jacob (Ya’akov). There are images of Santiago everywhere along the Camino. The church in Villalcazar de Sirga, where we stopped for lunch, had an alter devoted to him with a statue surrounded by a nine paintings depicting the legend of his life.
He was one of the 12 apostles. He came to the Iberian peninsula to preach the gospel and the Virgin Mary appeared to him here. When he returned to Jeruslahem he was beheaded by Herod Agrippa and his body was taken up by angels, and sailed in a rudderless, unattended boat back to Spain where a massive rock closed around his relics. The relics were discovered in the ninth century and moved to Santiago de Compostela.
We arrived early in Carrión de Los Condes with enough energy left to stroll around town. We walked by an Albergue where nuns were singing to a group of pilgrims. One of the nuns gave each of us a blessing while making a small sign of the cross on our foreheads. We are good to go.
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