Blessed By A Monk

 We walked from Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis today and it was another hot and long day. We walked thru the main square of Pontevedra and got our first stamp at the Peregrino church in the square.  It was a beautiful church.  We headed out and bought Santiago cake at a bakery before we left the city.  We walked out of town along nice trails into the country. 

A few miles out of town we stopped at the Santa Maria church and said a prayer.  Next door for the church was another building where a Monk was living.  He was giving prayer to Pilgrims.   Dianne and I got into a circle him and others and received an individual blessing from the Monk.  It was very special for both of us.  

We met up with our friends from Iowa and we finished the wall with them. Heidi was having a tough day walking but in the end she finished the walk with us. We enjoyed each others company and we spent time waking about a lot of different topics.  We all had interesting lives and our future is uncertain.  The Camino makes you think about your life and what is ahead of you.  We don’t know the future but we know it will be amazing.


Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 26, 2023 at 4:37 AM

    Jack: You missed your calling as a bathrobe model! The cake looked marvelous and what a spiritual privilege to be blessed by a Spanish monk. But we know you both are blessed...Marty

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 27, 2023 at 11:11 AM

    gLAD YOU ARE back SAFELY AND WILL SOON BE HOME. cAN'T GET "cap LOCK" OFF. bE SURE iOWA FOLKS KNOW MY NAME AND SUGGEST THEY CALL IS THEY GET TO dCORAH. wILL THEY BE COMING TO nORDIC FEST? sTAY SAFE. lOVE AND hUGS mon

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Woohoo We Made It!

Image
We walked from Teo to Santiago today and the weather was nice with a mix of clouds and sun.  The high was 72 and it was humid.  The distance was just over 8 miles but we had two climbs of 500 feet each so that added some time/. The walk was very nice with a lot of trails in the woods and thru small villages.   The end was on city streets as we headed down into the old city before getting to the Catedral.  The crowds were smaller than last year but it was still very exciting to finish in the square with the Catedral rising above us.  We both cried as we came into the square - it was very emotional to finally be done after 35 days.   We had an amazing adventure but tomorrow we can sleep in and we don’t have to get our bags ready and we can enjoy our time in Santiago. We had dinner tonight with the 6 people from Iowa and it was a wonderful meal together.  It was tough to say goodbye but we plan on seeing them when we travel to Iowa.   Buen Camino (good camino)
Read more

Experience the real Camino

Image
We left  Alvaiazere under a cloudy and foggy sky.  It was a perfect day for walking.  The first part was uphill thru a beautiful valley with many small villages.  There were olive trees on both sides of the road and path.  There were also plenty of rocks which had been used to build low walls - some of them hundreds of years old.  There were also hundreds of abandoned buildings in various states of decay.  The trail was rather rugged in some areas but well traveled and clear. Today was the first day we saw pilgrims on the trail.  Some were traveling in our direction and other’s in the opposite direction which was the ‘Fatima’ trail.  They use the same trails just go in opposite directions.  The Camino Portuguese trail is marked with the yellow arrows while the Fatima trail uses blue arrows to keep them separate.   At the highest point this morning we had wonderful views down the valley.  The hills are tree covered and wonderfully green.  We keep seeing groves where trees have been cut
Read more