Tag: Peregrino

Monte de Gozo – Peregrino holding pen

5km from the end of my 750km #MyLongWalk2019 and I am staying in one of the more surreal places of the whole walk. It is now called Benvido Monte de Gozo but many experienced pilgrims refer to it disaffectionately as ‘prison camp’ or ‘refugee camp’. It is currently undergoing a massive overhaul and I am staying in one of the first refurbished Pabellons. The whole complex was built in 1993 for a Holy Year (this is any year when St James’s Day falls on a Sunday. It is July 25th. and the next one is 2021, these years are known as Xacabeo, hence the massive overhaul and obras). The creation of this auditorium and accomodation complex was also to co-incide with a Papal visit and the hundreds of thousands extra that this attracted. In a Holy Year there will be up to 3 times more pilgrims than a normal year. This may be over a million in 2021.

Monte de Gozo is the last hill before Santiago and translates as Mount of Joy, ancient pilgrims got their first thrilling glimpse of the cathedral as they walked down it’s slopes. Now you have to struggle to the very top to peer round the trees and development to make out the three spires in the hazy distance.

The pabellons or blocks as they really are, strike me as somewhere between a POW camp and Butlins – must add never been to either! Be assured my particular block has been refurbished and is fine. Work is ongoing on many of the other blocks. Four of them will remain Albergue Municipal rather than the privately run Benvido ones. Currently it’s facilities run to an ATM, a lavanderia (automatic laundry) and a very nice Estrella Galicia Bodega bar.

There is also a swimming pool complex and a massive auditorium, which was the venue for shenanigans on Lisa and my last visit to Santiago. To avoid Reading Festival we flew on to La Coruña and drove down here only to be kept awake by a full-on music festival at Monte de Gozo, headlined by Muse, light show, fireworks the lot!

It will, no doubt be much better when it is finished being renovated. The manager told me that will be in time for 2020 season, then the Holy Year onslaught that will follow in 2021. There are already signs of more on offer for future pilgrims who decide to rest up here at the ‘holding pen’, so they can walk the last 5km into the Praza do Obradoiro the next morning.

As for today’s walk…. it was the longest of the Camino for me. Most of the Turismegrinos stayed at Pedrouza which means a 20km+ walk tomorrow. I’ll be done and dusted, with Compostela in hand, well before they arrive. I set off well before dawn and a sneakily walked behind a French couple who were wearing head torches! Today’s odd stuff included a bar decorated entirely with Peregrino branded beer bottles; discarded shoes used as plant pots; a nice hierro; a bar proudly showing off the cross of Galicia; a massive frog; a caged pilgrim? and of course some cows.

Reading Peregrinos

Peregrino is the spanish word for Pilgrim and in particular a traveller on the Camino de Santiago.

Tonight I went along to a Camino meeting at St James’ Church in central Reading. I went for the sole reason of finding out if anyone there would be able to stamp my Credencial – Pilgrim Passport – before I set of for Gatwick, and flight onto Biarritz in July. The priest, Father John, was charming and said of course he would do so.

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I felt a bit odd as I am quite the non-believer! What I do like is looking around the amazing architecture that is found in religious buildings. I have walked past this small church many, many times over the years but had until tonight never been inside. It is delightful and well-worth a visit if you are in the town! There is even a shrine to Saint James himself! The church is located right between the now-closed HMP Reading (made famous by Oscar Wilde, who was imprisoned there) and the ruins of Reading Abbey.  Apparently in medieval times the great abbey and church were the ‘home’ of the cult of St James, as the hand of the saint was to be found in the church. It is no longer there. The scallop shell can be seen in many places around the town, including the coat of arms of both the town and it’s university.

Anyway – the meeting was in fact a planning meeting for the church folk to sign up for their camino at the end of the summer – they will be walking a 148km section of the Camino del Norte from Aviles to Vilalba – with the plan of completing it into Santiago in 2020. This will be the 7th annual Camino that has been organised by the church community! Kudos to them! They are also planning to walk the St James Way from Reading Abbey to Southampton via Calleva Roman Town and Winchester Cathedral over a series of Saturdays this spring.

It is amazing that so much camino-based activity is going on locally to me, and until now I was blissfully unaware of it. Just like the scallop, which I now see everywhere!

Buen Camino.