English Hospitality

Wednesday: Estorga to Rabanal
This is a short day (only 21km) but Rabanal is the only place at which I have been certain that I wanted to stop. I read a piece by one of the two monks there, and since then discovered that the hostel run by the English Confraternity is directly across from the church. As it rains in the afternoon we were grateful to have arrived somewhere cosy and be out of the elements before it turned nasty.

After breakfast we have a look around Estorga Cathedral, which is fine without having much to admire. If there had been more time then a more fruitful visit would have been too the Gaudi bishop's palace next door (now a museum of the Camino).

Estorga has promenades offering views across the plain, but we retain our height and climb gently along a pleasant path. The slanting morning rays of the sun soon lights up the red soil and the green of the trees.

Nico asks about James and James the Less. I puff out my cheeks, wondering where one starts, and dive into an attempt to disentangle the Jameses (with reference, of course, to James the brother of the Lord). This leads on to, Paul and the Church of Jerusalem, an explanation of New Testament understandings of the Law, the dating of NT writings, and basic two-source theory.

We stop for coffee in a beautiful village and then press on, upwards, to Rabanal. We find the albergue and I am greeted by Brendan from Tynemouth who knows all about me and is expecting me. The welcome was superb and the hostel is lovely. There was even afternoon tea.

I meet Fr Piers (we soon discover that we have a mutual friend in Mark Butlin) and I am able to celebrate mass for 6 of us in the church before vespers.