[Gocamino] [Santiagobis] YouTube video of Camino Aragones

[Rosina]

Hi Bob,
A couple of years ago Grant put together a picture-show of the San Juan de la Penha Monastery, lovingly accompanied by some Gregorian chants.  It can be seen at 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXjeRnnCslk

While there are many sites in the French Camino of which I am very fond, the Aragonese portion is, without a doubt,  from Somport to the second Puente La Reina,  my very favorite. I have walked it twice and traversed it, by car, several times. I expect that the reason for my predilection is the relative calm and quiet of the section, the icy-blue winds rolling down from the Pyrenees, the rocky mountain peaks with their crystal lakes, the ancient pilgrimage sites that seem to preserve their spiritual magnetism,  the Leyre Monastery -which implanted the significance of the Camino  in my very heart and soul- and, irresistibly,  that symphonic poem created in a mountain cave which is the San Juan de la Penha Monastery. 
Devoid of the commercialism and crowds of the other sections of the French Camino, the Aragonese part does afford the intellectual, environmental and spiritual conditions in which it is possible to imagine and, perhaps, understand a little, what the pilgrimage to Santiago may have meant, and seemed, to all those pilgrims centuries and centuries ago.
Three months ago a friend of mine went to Spain to walk the Camino for the first time. Encouraged by Linda Davidson's enthusiastic and admiring description of the Aragonese route in her book "The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago" (The very best, hands-down, Camino  book of its kind), my friend and her husband commenced their walk at Somport; after Jaca they decided to take the small detour to San Juan de la Penha. Once there they were so wonder-struck that they changed their plans and stayed in the area for two weeks! 
There is now, I am told, a place to stay in the woods at the top of the mountain, by the "new" monastery, from which one can walk down to the old monastery at will.  I envy my friends and understand perfectly their decision. When visiting the monastery I have very much  wished I could stay up there for a few days instead of having to go down the mountain  at dusk.  How wonderful to know that it is possible to do so now.

Well, .......I've zillions of Camino news to share, but the World Cup (and work) has taken all my time and attention.  Now that my favorite team, Brasil, is out of contention (sigh! sob! bah! , humbug!) I'll catch up on reporting things as soon as I get over my anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration, etc. etc. etc. . 
 
Hugs!

Rosina



Subject: Re: [Gocamino] [Santiagobis] YouTube video of Camino Aragones

Thanks for that Ralph. I hope to get back on track on that route again, but I 
don't know when I can get to it.

What surprises me is that there wasn't a single scene that looked familiar to me 
until the photo of the Eunate. Of course my previous trip was done 10 years ago 
and I often stuck to the highway instead of wandering off onto the marked 
routes. I am especially puzzled by the old river crossing just before Jaca. I 
have read recent descriptions of the problems with that crossing and I have 
wondered what they were all about. I don't remember anything at all like that. 
Again, it may have been that I stayed on a highway.

Obviously San Juan de Peña was unfamiliar, since I didn't take that side trip. 
In fact, I never even heard about it until long after I returned from that trip 
in 2000.

The Eunate itself was something that I didn't see on that trip since I bypassed 
it, going from Monreal to Pamplona and thence to Puenta la Reina, two 20km legs 
of the triangle instead of the one 30km leg. It was on a much more recent trip 
on the regular camino francés that I did the Eunate as a short detour.

The shot of Somport was really surprising. The pass was completely deserted when 
I went through there in 2000. As far as I know, the only refugio in the area at 
that time was in Canfranc Estación and I didn't even see that one because I 
booked in at the first hotel I found as I entered that town. My first refugio 
experience was at a private one in Artrieda - half way along my 1000 mile trip. 
The first municipal or parochial type refugio was the old one at Pamplona, which 
was quite a culture shock after the dearth of fellow walkers for the first 6 
weeks.

Even my own recent trip on the French part of the route there were a lot of 
sections that seemed unfamiliar. I didn't get very far on it - less than 100 
miles, from Arles to Lodève. Except for the cities themselves and the route up 
the Gorge d'Herault, very little of it was familiar. Partly this is because I 
sometimes had to take to the highways on that earlier trip and part of it is 
that there have been a lot of (confusing) route changes.

Bob S.

On Jun 30, 2010, at 9:03 AM, Ralph Alcorn wrote:
I haven't got the trip report together yet, but I did put together a video of 
our walk from Oloron-Sainte-Marie to Logroño that we just finished. If you have 
walked it, I think this will bring back memories: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBt4kWbc86Q&hd=1
Ralph Alcorn
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