Pilgrim's Road

rounded roofs at differing heights over the apse. Just beneath the eaves is a running frieze made up of several hundred beautifully carved animals, human figures, monsters and plants. It reminded me a little of the marvellous Armenian church of Holy Cross on the island of Akhtamar in Lake Van, except that Frómista’s church rises not from an azure lake, but incongruously from an unattractive little square.
    While I was studying the frieze from a nearby bench, a coach drove up and about thirty visitors, all middle-aged, got down and milled about the church, showing the same sort of disappointment as I had felt about finding it locked. It is difficult for so large a group of people descending altogether upon a peaceful location not to appear as a minor invasion, and usually I beat a hasty retreat at the approach of coach parties. But this one was noticeably restrained, and as unobtrusive as thirty people can be in an otherwise deserted square. One of their number came over to ask me whether I had located the priest, and went off hopefully to find him. Several others drifted across, and as soon as they discovered I was English, they addressed me in that language with a fluency that made me ashamed of my ungrammatical French. They were all Belgians, members of a private travel club whose sole purpose was to organise cultural holidays, and they were currently exploring the Camino. Because of the unusual warmth of the day I was wearing my red Confraternity sweatshirt with its large black scallop shells and several of the coach party asked if they might photograph me as I was the first pilgrim they had seen on the route. This was more embarrassing than being photographed by tourists in Burgos, for the Belgian party appeared knowledgeable; they had clearly done their homework and knew about pilgrims. Did this mean then that they considered me a certain kind of person? More religious than the average perhaps? I found myself very eager to dispel any such notions. ‘I was not a pilgrim, well not in any real sense. I was just going to Santiago, like them; taking a little longer over the journey that was all, and doing it by bicycle of course.’ But they were not to be balked of their memento ‘Of course it was different, and they only wished they had the time and the courage’, and so forth. Their organiser returned at this point, unable to find the key to the church, and we went our separate ways.
    Eight miles beyond Frómista is another tiny village, Villalcázar de Sirga, which in Picaud’s day had been a thriving town with a great convent under the direct protection of the Knights Templar. The church of Santa María is all that remains of the thirteenth-century glory but that alone is enough to evoke its past. Where Frómista had a delicate classical perfection, this church was sumptuous in scale from the vast entrance arch and lovely portal to the details of tombs and chapels within. I gained access thanks to the Belgians whose organiser had been successful here in tracking down the key.
    When I had ridden into the village and seen the Belgians’ coach parked there, I had tried to escape observation. Having been waved off from Frómista with lots of Bon voyages and Bonne routes the thought of having to go through it all again made me feel shy. But they had been waiting for me to appear, and to my surprise their organiser came straight over and invited me to have lunch with them. She said they had arranged a very special lunch here in this village and having a pilgrim as their guest would make it truly memorable. I thought they were merely being charitable and friendly, but since both motives were in keeping with the spirit of the pilgrimage, I accepted — no real traveller ever refuses a meal anyway.
    The lunch, which turned out to be more in the nature of a banquet, was served in a former sixteenth-century warehouse, a long room with a heavily beamed ceiling and a single table running down the centre. A dear old man, Don Pablo Payo, the owner, was welcoming the guests at the door, dressed in the hat and cloak of a traditional pilgrim, a staff and gourd in one hand and a mayor’s heavy chain of office round his neck. Any feeling of it being an over-theatrical production was at once dispelled by his sweetness of expression and his air of it all being the most natural thing in the world. As he handed me a large carnation with which he welcomed all the women, the organiser explained enthusiastically that they had