Santo Domingo de la Calzada to Belorado

We began this morning with a reading from Revelation 7, about the great multitude in heaven that could not be counted, from every nation, tribe, people, and language.  We are certainly meeting people from every nation, tribe, people, and language.  So far, at least as best as I can recall, we have met and spoken with (sort of) people from the following countries: Canada (of course!), USA, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, France, England, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Australia, Italy, South Africa.

We can hardly believe the weather we are enjoying on our Camino.  Another day of sunshine and blue skies, and as we leave Santo Domingo behind we walk along a row of what we think are a sort of wisteria tree (?).

It's always quite cool when we begin our daily trek, especially in the town itself, with its narrow, shaded streets and the wind blowing through.  It took only half an hour before the jackets came off, here by one of many places where you suddenly find a cross or some shrine to a saint...

We have been in the region/province of Rioja the past couple of days, the primary wine growing region of Spain, and it's the only province that has provided distance signposts along the way on the Camino.  We are not sure we really like them very much, since they seem to make the kms feel longer, and the province of Burgos where we are now no longer has them.  The number posted shows how far we have to go before we arrive in Santiago.

Along the way today, I took some random, weird pictures...whatever suited my fancy...like the bottom of a highway bridge we passed under (I thought the design was interesting)...

...and a sheep herding dog that approached us, looking either for its owner or its sheep and being quite disappointed to find it was only 4 Canadian pilgrims!

Most of the way today was along a gravel road, wide but not smooth, with vast vistas surrounding us all along the way.  Everywhere you look, there are fields of one crop or another growing on hillsides.  We are definitely walking the Camino during the most beautiful time of the year!

On our way to this evening's destination, we passed through 4 villages.  The third of these was the village where Saint Domingo (the town where we stayed last night was named after him) was born, as the sign says.  It also had a home frontage with vines that we thought was very pretty and picture worthy...

Just before 2 p.m. we arrived in the town of Belorado, where we are staying in a very old casa rural for the night.  It never ceases to amaze us how each village and town has its own impressive cathedral.  A town of 2100 people has a cathedral whose interior looks like this...

Just as interesting, the front and top of the church has 4 stork nests...one of the 4 flew off just before I took the picture, but see if you can spot the other 3...

And of course, as usual, we reward ourselves with a cool drink in the town plaza along with many other pilgrims.  Boy, that sunshine feels good and that brew goes down smooth!

A mañana...

Distance today: 22.9 kms

Time on the road: 6:15

Total distance to date: 240 kms

Walking days remaining: 25