Dec
20
Over passes higher than Ben Nevis and into Galicia
Filed Under EN
Not much further to go now: Alan Sykes is still remarkably blister-free and showing no signs of a limp as he follows centuries of pilgrims on the 1000km Via de la Plata from Seville to Santiago de Compostela.
Puebla de Sanabria’s church and castle
Turning left towards Sanabria and the foothills of Galicia sadly meant saying good-bye to the sun for a little while. You know it’s not good when the weather in the place you’re going to is one of the opening items on national TV news. On a couple of days it seemed as if the rain in Spain was falling mainly on my head.
The tower of Tábara’s former visigothic monastery. The “beato de Manchester” came from here
First stop on the Camino Sanabrés is Tábara, home to a visigothic scriptorium that provided some of the finest manuscripts in Christendom. One of the artists based there was a monk called Magius, who has been described as “the Picasso of the 10th century“. Copies of some of his works include the Las Huelgas Beatus, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which has the best surviving picture of what a scriptorum looked like, under Tábara’s tower. Another version is in the Rylands Library in Manchester – known in Spain as el beato de Manchester.
A 10th century statue of St James as a pilgrim – the earliest known.
There are various representations of St James, the two most popular being Santiago Peregrino, and Santiago Matamoris, the Moor-killer. In little Santa Marta de Tera, half a day’s walk from Tábara, is the oldest known representation of him as a pilgrim, an 11th century statue outside the little Romanesque church, showing him complete with walking stick, pilgrim scrip and scallop shell.
We even get our own road signs
The scallop shell – possibly used by pilgrims to dunk into communal stews – has become the emblem of the camino to Santiago, and is used as a way-marker throughout Spain. In fact pilgrims even have their own highway hazard sign: a pilgrim with walking stick and water-gourd apparently battling a head-wind, with a scallop shell beneath. Other attractions in Sanabria include Mombuey, where in the 13th century the Templars added a narrow fortified tower to the church. Soon afterwards a couple of Neolithic standing stones form a gateway to a field in the middle of nowhere.
Otero’s seven sinners burning merrily in hell
In Otero de Sanabria, a wooden carved relief shows seven sinners burning briskly in the eternal flames while on the door to the church itself Sts Peter and Paul smugly guard the way. Puebla de Sanabria, lying just below the high passes into Galicia, is dominated by a handsome cliff-top castle and fortress-like 12th century church.
Obélix was here? Standing stones in Sanbria
The passes into Galicia are around 4,500′ above sea level, fractionally higher than Ben Nevis. That sounds quite a lot, but as you’re already over 3,200′ up in Puebla de Sanabria, it’s not really that much. Up at the top the views can probably be really spectacular, looking back over Sanabria and forward, on to the promised land of Galicia. When I went that way, there was constant, relentless rain, and panoramic views stretching all of 100 yards of the inside of a cloud.
Alan Sykes is the Guardian Northerner’s arts expert and much else, including temporary cookery correspondent of The Hotspur parish magazine. He is trekking 1000km to Santiago de Compostela to expiate unknown sins. You can read his earlier reports from the camino here. More to come, and you can meanwhile urge him on with a Tweet: @geltsdale
Here is a map of Alan’s route – the Via de la Plata – which is copyright 2010 www.santiago-compostela.net, an excellent website which has lots of information on all the pilgrim routes. As you can see, he’s doing well but nearly half the journey still awaits before arrival on Christmas Eve.
The photographs – Ben Nevis apart – are by Alan too.
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