John, one of the English guys I walked/lunched/dinnered with for a few days is a day ahead now and sent a text to Sue and me saying that this day coming up was totally boring. Not! I’m so entertained by my own head, the books I’m listening to, the art, trying to stay in an observing state – the people, sounds, sights, so much. Here’s a snippet of the art – you can see a church in the distance in the bronze cut out statue, very careful placement:
The first taken from a bridge with me hanging over.
Then there’s the nature:
Birds eating the sunflowers before they can be harvested, hope there’s some left for the farmer! Sorry about the blurry photo, they were all in motion.
FORGIVE THE VIDEOING! Didn’t want to be horribly obvious so rested it on my poles.
Then the churches. Every day I think this is going to be the day for no more churches, then something different shows up. This one was great. First, it was clearly a fortress/church:
This was in the town of Villalcazar de Sirga. I’m going to go back to The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: “According to tradition, ca. 1157 Castilian king Sancho III invited the Knights Templar to protect the Santiago Road. They established their base in Villalcazar and within 40 years had constructed a monumental fortified church and residence complex.”
This is the Iglesia de Santa Maria la Blanca. Most of it dates from late 12th c and early 13th c. “Legend holds that in 1157 Queen Blanca de Castillo, the wife of Sancho III, donated some of her jewels for the refurbishment of the church and its dedication to the image of the White Virgin.”
What’s incredible to me is that the earthquake of 1755 and the war against the French in 1808 caused the loss of: fortified tower, cloister, chapter house, residences of the Knights Templar, pilgrim hospice, silos, stables, the enormous surrounding wall with it’s towers, gates, etc and the west end of the church. And look at what’s left! Unbelievable.
THEN – the miracles of the White Virgin:“An unrepentant French pilgrim could not physically enter the church until he had begged the Virgin to forgive him.”“A crippled German pilgrim who saw the ‘great number of pilgrims going to Santiago from his country’ decided to hobble along with them and although he found no cure in Compostela, he was granted his miracle in Villasirga on the return trip.“A sinner from Toulouse was sentenced by his abbot to walk to Compostela carrying with one hand a 24-pound iron weight to lay on Santiago’s altar. In Villasirga he rested it on the alter and prayed for pardon. The weight split in two, and since no one could lift either piece, he was free from his obligation.”
The best for me, personally, is they had music playing. I, absentmindedly, had forgotten to take out my earbuds when I stopped listening to my book, so the music was not really loud (!), but I could hear it. Here’s the church:
Curiosity and maybe a great idea for old folks:
Maybe for old bikers?!
And then the piece de resistance, crossing this bridge (cheated and got this from a postcard) and see the next church/monastery:
And, oh yeah, that’s my hotel! I can’t believe it. Seriously nice, remodeled from a monastery complete with cloister and giant church. The room is wonderful, I’m not flipping back the covers so I’m only touching the sheets, it’s quiet with a courtyard outside my window and a cloister outside my door. Did the same goofy thing with the video, but had to take photo and video of my room.
First from my window, then out my door:
I was hoping for music and to sit in the church, but there was a video/recording that never stopped talking (in Spanish) about the Cluny reformation in the 11th c, that’s when the Royal Monastery of Saint Zoilo, began to shine. The brochure: “We know that a community of monks lived here in 948 AD. Teodomiro was the abbot’s name, who finished writing the cartulary, foundation book of the monastery in that year…in the 5th century the monastery changed its dedication from St. John the Baptist when the relics of the martyr Saint Zoilo, also name Zoil, were brought from Cordoba.” So flexible, right?
It became Benedictine in the 15th century and the “current cloister was constructed in order to impress in stone the importance of Benedictines throughout the centuries and History.” I’m impressed!
You saw the cloister in that splendid video, here’s the church. That giant box must be the reliquary for Saint Zoilo’s relics.
And, because I’m always curious about these saints, from Wikipedia: Saint Zoilus is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church. Christian tradition states that he was a young man martyred with nineteen others at Cordoba, Spain.” I think they all became saints. There are a LOT of saints here.
Oh, and also, there’s a Michelin starred restaurant here, so there are variations on the….meat, cheese and bread 🙂
Reb's Walks! 
The pictures are so vivid, and the stories about the saints are so GREAT, I feel like I’m there! Sam came down and asked what I was doing, because my head was sideways to my computer. “Looking at Rebecca’s cloister”, I answered, which made no sense to him (he retreated back upstairs).
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