Go to: Day 1
Starting this pilgrimage blog today. The web site has some pre-set templates that I’ll slowly clean up. It’s going to look clunky for a while but starting is the key. For some reason the first paragraph (or part of it) repeats itself at the beginning but I cannot figure out how to get rid of this duplicate paragraph (aagh… God is still good & gracious!).
April 9 Thu (Day 0): Madrid => Oviedo
Landed in Madrid (IB 4000 flight from JFK) at around 6:45am. Cleared passport swiftly and out of the airport by 7:30am. Got on Madrid metro to Chamartin station. However, there was a construction related transfer problem so I decided to walk the 2nd leg of the commute. To my delight, coincidentally pilgrimaged by the dear Mecca of Madridismo (Real Madrid fandom), the Santiago Bernabeu home stadium and saw the cloudy sunrise of Thursday there.
It was nice to walk the streets of Madrid again:
Made it to Chamartin station by 9am and got on the 9:15am speedy train to Oviedo.
Pulled into Oviedo train station at 1:30pm (45 mins late – due to recent large train accidents in Spain, rail conductors are being extremely careful & slow) and spent the day visiting churches, obtaining the pilgrimage credentials and generally preparing for this 2 week Camino.
Oviedo is a beautiful historic city with lots of Camino history. In the 9th Century AD, Oviedo-based King Alfonso II (aka “the Chaste” because he was a spiritually devout King, having grown in a monastery, and abstained from sexual pleasure and scandals) of the precursor Kingdom of Asturias, made the first ever pilgrimage to the tomb of Santiago (hence, what became known as the Camino Primitivo), when the former heard about the findings of St. James’ remains in what became the city named after the latter (Santi Ago means St James in the old Galician tongue). King Alfonso also seeded the funds to build the great cathedral on top of the tomb (similar to how the Vatican was built on the sepulcher of St Peter) and the city surrounding it.
Oviedo people are extremely proud of their Camino origin story/heritage and treat pilgrimages very seriously. I remember 3 years ago, I detoured from the Camino del Norte for a day trip to Oviedo (having heard about such rich history from other pilgrims) and the front desk person at the main Cathedral of Oviedo frowned on me when I requested a stamp for my pilgrimage credential book. He looked at my previous stamps and lectured me for liberally obtaining stamps from taverns, bars and all kind of local establishments (which a lot of pilgrims did to collect memories and sort of catch pilgrimage Pokémons). He instructed me that the proper way was to only collect stamps from churches, monasteries, albergues and civic agencies (i.e. no worldly places).
Oviedo is full of beautiful churches and monasteries, and there are masses and prayer services pretty much around the clock daily:
The main Cathedral of Oviedo, aka Catedral de San Salvador (St Saviour after the ultimate Saint Savior, the Lord Jesus), is the center of the city life and of its history. Soon after its groundbreaking in the 8th Century by a previous king, it was majorly funded and boosted by the devoted King Alfonso II, who wanted to safeguard in her Christianity’s top relics from the attacking moors. The Cathedral holds the shroud of Jesus’ head, wrapped around when he died, among other valuable relics. It’s an awe inspiring cathedral holding a lot of historic Christian art and church artifacts as well. No wonder why the Oviedo pilgrimage snobs (tongue in cheek) state: “Quien va a Santiago y no al Salvador, visita al criado y deja al señor” which means whoever goes to Santiago but not to the Savior (after the Cathedral of San Salvador) is like one who visits the servant but not the master:
Another highlight of the day was the menu del día prix fixe lunch feast for only 15 euros! For the fist dish, I chose the Pote Asturiano (a regional beans & pork sausages/meat stew) and the Cachopo for the second main dish (a rich breaded steak with melting cheese and prosciutto inside too, also from the region; just couldn’t finish it as it was too much). I also skipped the dessert, which was originally included, along with the wine and soda water (trying to imperfectly avoid the sin of gluttony). The waitress was kind enough to also provide me a sample of their famous cider, another typical drink of the region. The restaurant was Sidrería Las Güelas, in the Cider boulevard of Oviedo called Calle Gascona.
I ended the day meaningfully attending an evening mass at the sister church of the Cathedral of Oviedo, Church of Santa Maria de la Corte. At the end of the mass, the priest prayed a special blessing prayer for pilgrims in attendance (about 10 of us), which verbatim was as follows (they gave us a printout too):
Go to: Day 1