Tag: Rabanal

Rabanal and the casa rural

of all the types of potential accommodation available along the Camino, it took us 24 days to stay in a casa rural — basically a B&B — but it was worth the wait. the place I’d tried to book (fancier and farther up the hill) didn’t have a record of my request (which didn’t come as a surprise) so we headed back down the hill ad tried the first non-albergue we could find. the room they offered us overlooked the main road (along which the Camino began its final ascent towards our next set of mountains) and a ruined building with mountains in the distance. a wonderfully peaceful place to rest with spectacular view.

after our standard shower-nap program, our location dictated that either of our food options required a steep climb back up the hill; our fatigued feet opted for the easy way to start (downhill) and delaying the greater exertion for later. immediately next to our casa rural stood a tiny church whose door stood open to entice peregrinos to enter. inside, beyond an alcove with a history of the church written on panels, and through metal bars designed to keep unsavory characters away, stood a remarkably impressive, gilded altar. dazzling in the sunlight that filtered through the open door — in a tiny church in a tiny town way off the beaten path in remote León. in a church that wasn’t even the village’s primary church! the wide-ranging influence of the Catholic church, sneaking up on you in the most unusual places.

the village dates from the period of Roman mining of precious metals in the nearby hills though its location on the Camino — approximately one day’s walk from the popular starting point of Astorga — enhanced its viability. ** an aside: in order to receive the Compostela in Santiago, one needn’t complete the entire Camino Frances (departing from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port or Roncesvalles). you technically only need to walk the last 100 kilometers (from approximately Sarria), about which more later, though many people complete it in stages. most commonly, people complete it over three years and walk St. Jean to Burgos one year, Burgos to Astorga another, and then Astorga to Santiago. ** in the 12th century, the Knights Templar maintained a garrison in Rabanal tasked with protecting peregrinos heading over the mountain towards Ponferrada, a Templar stronghold. while Rabanal catered strongly to peregrinos, it was merely one of several small villages along the Camino up the mountain to do so, and some itineraries had people continuing on to the nearly-deserted town of Foncebadon instead. after walking through as part of a steady stream of peregrinos, I can’t quite imagine spending the night in such a ghostly shell of a town-that-once-was.

out-of-the-ordinary on the way to Rabanal del Camino

heading out of Astorga, the terrain grew dramatically more interesting if commensurately challenging. hills! and trees! and still more fields though these were marked into smaller parcels by short, stacked-stone walls (that reminded me somewhat of Ireland). this terrain is better for grazing rather than planting and we saw more, though not many, grazing animals.

the second town we passed through out of Astorga had a distinctly remote and timeless quality to it. the houses were stout, the windows small, and some of the roofs thatched. little existed beyond the main street, which hosted three cafes and two or three casa rurales or albergues. the only water fountain was hidden behind some buildings and could only be accessed down a narrow pathway between the two. we stopped to peel an orange on a bench beside what might have been someone’s front door and saw more than a couple people pass the passage and double back when they realized their overshoot.

one of the more interesting sites on this stretch was a cafe (and possibly albergue) in the tiny town of El Ganso. unlike the previous town, it had an odd mix of modern/rustic — maintained but aging homes, presumably inhabited by aging owners without flashy young money to install the latest conveniences, and an assortment of homes being completely gutted and remodeled and re-roofed to satisfy the preferences for city-living, weekend-visiting younger owners. my cultural book indicates its one of the best places to view traditional Maragato architecture and that the main road wasn’t paved until the 1990s.

in El Ganso we stopped at a cafe called Meson Cowboy for our standard bocadilla. as we claimed a spot in the shade, we saw the Australian couple we’d dined with at the albergue in San Martin and said our hellos (we saw them again several more times though not with the consistency with which we saw the Koreans early on the Camino). at the bar we also encountered a herd of cats of various shapes, sizes, and temperaments — as well as some of the ruder German tourists we encountered on the Camino. it’s likely they were peregrinos, but they certainly behaved and carried themselves more like tourists disinclined to engage local culture. at least their presence spurred us to return to the day’s hike with a shorter-than-intended break. suppose it worked out in our favor somehow — helped us nab a room at a casa rural in Rabanal with a great view of the mountains where we chatted with a nice Canadian (?) couple at breakfast the following morning. a stark contrast and heartening reminder of all the reasons people decide to set out on the Camino.