El Burgo Ranero

I said goodbye to Kathy then walked down to the station and bought my ticket to El Burgo Ranero,  train leaving at 14hr37.  I am amazed at the exactitude of the timetables here. The bus is at 11:51. Not 11:50 or 11:55 , but 11:51.  The train will depart at 14h37 - not 14h35 but exactly 14h37.
I asked if I could also buy a ticket from El Burgo to Mansilla the next day.  "No hay". He said. The train doesn't go to Mansilla, I must take the bus. But sir, where do I get the bus ticket? "No se". I don't know.  (There's a hole in the bucket, dear Lisa, dear Lisa, there's a hole in the bucket,  dear Lisa,  a hole).
I went back to the hostal and tried finding a bus from El Burgo to Mansilla but kept coming up with nothing on the tablet search.  I asked if I could use the Internet in their reception.
Turns out that there is no bus on Saturday. We are back to the weekend story. No bus and no train. I will have to get a taxi tomorrow to Mansilla. I was planning on getting one of the almost hourly buses available to La Virgin on Sunday. HA! No way, Jose. There are hourly buses Lunes to Viernes, but none on Domingo (Sunday).  I will get a taxi to Leon bus station and, hopefully, will be able to buy tickets from there to La Virgin,  Hospital d'Orbigo and to Astorga.
I left a message on the ALSA Facebook page about the problems I'm having with getting bus tickets. Can't buy them on the bus,  or in the towns, or online if you have a foreign credit card. "Try booking on Movelia" they replied.
I went on the Movelia website. It seems that one can book with them, even if you have a foreign credit card,  and if you don't have a printer.  You take down the booking reference number.   I'd like to try that. I might book a one-way ticket just to see if it works.
At 13h30 I walked back into town and a peregrina from  Italy asked me where the bus stop was. She wanted to go to El Burgo Ranero.  Providence? 'Honey you have stopped just the right person' I think,  and tell her no bus without a ticket,  nowhere to buy the ticket,  best to take the train. "Donde estacion el tren? She asks. "Come with me," I say, and we make our way to the station.
Luciana is originally from Brazil but now lives and works in Venice, Italy.  We manage to converse in Spanish and we get on the train together.  El Burgo is an 11 minute ride. I think it will take Kathy over 4 hours. We arrive at 14h48. Its a dusty,  tired looking place and a small stream of pilgrims follow us to the town. How do I know where to go?  I dont, I just head for a church tower and soon pick up the yellow arrows.
I say goodbye to Luciana and she kisses my hand. Sweet peregrina. I turn left towards the large service station truck stop hotel, Castillo Burgo, where Kathy is waiting for me.
I shower, wash a few clothes and set up a makeshift washline near the open window then Kathy I go downstairs to the large cafeteria. I have a mixed salad (no tuna) and she has beef steak, eggs and chips. She is burning up energy walking +20km each day and I am burning out trying  to get from one town to the next.
At 7pm we are ready to retire to our smart, truck stop rooms.

Sahagun

I had a tin of fruit salad in the room and at 7.45am took the pink bag to the reception. I moved my stuff to the cafeteria so that they could clean my room.
About an hour later Julia joined me. We sat and had a drink and she told me a bit about her work as a teacher.
She wanted to get to Sahagun so that she could start walking to Calzadilla but she didn't have a bus ticket. "Would you consider sharing a taxi with me?" She asked. I had a bus ticket. The  bus was at 12.35pm. It was 10.45. The taxi would have us there by 11.15. I gave the bus ticket to a pilgrim sitting outside the albergue and shared a taxi (€13) to Sahagun.
The owner of Hostal Alfonso V1 confirmed that the only way to get a bus ticket for tomorrow was to book one online.  He suggested I get the train at 2.30pm.  There is nothing in El Burgo Ranero so I will get the train tomorrow. At least there's a train station where I can buy a ticket.
Kathy sent an sms to say that she was in her room. We had a drink and some cookies she had bought on her way in. She went off to update her blog and I had a half - bath in the sitting bath. I gave some washing to the hostal and had a rest before we both went out to explore the town.
This is all that is left of one of the most powerful Benedictine monasteries in Spain.

When we go to the plaza Mayor we found the Aussie family snd Pat, the NY policeman,  sitting in the plaza. We joined them and had bocadillos and cold drinks.
Kathy joined them to walk to the church on the hill where one could get a halff way sello. I found a small corner shop selling fruit, water, Aquarius and yoghurt for tomorrow.
Kathy back very chuffed as she had earned  half-way certificate, much like the new Compostela. It was almost 9pm and time for bed.

Walking with awareness

There is much more to see on the Camino than paths, rocks, wheat fields, vineyards, monuments, churches, villages and towns.
While you are walking, look out for a few other interesting things! 

Wonderful Weather Vanes/Weathervanes

Even though you have to look down at the path to see where you put your feet, when walking through a village look up every now and then and you will see dozens of charming weather vanes on top of churches and private homes.

A 9^th Century, a pope decreed that all churches display a cockerel as a reminder to parishioners of the Last Supper when Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him three times before the cock crowed in the morning. (Luke 22:34). These eventually evolved into weathercocks and weather vanes. 

The earliest recorded weather vane, erected in the 1^st Century BC, depicted the Greek god Triton on the Tower of the Winds in Athens.
In the Middle Ages flags flying from castle towers served two purposes.  They identified the insignia of the resident noblemen and showed archers the direction of the winds.  Metal “vanes” - derived from the Saxon word “fane” meaning, “flag” - gradually replaced these fabric banners.
The Bayeux tapestry, dating to the 11^th Century, depicts a weathercock being attached to spire of Westminster Abbey.

In medieval France a weather vane was a status symbol and although knights were allowed to place heraldic vanes on their castles, commoners had to wait until 1659 before they were granted the right to erect weather vanes.

The oldest known functioning weather vane in England is thought to be a recently re-gilded, early 14^th Century weathercock at Ottery St Mary’s in Devon.  There are repairs to two gunshot holes which were allegedly made in 1643 by some of Fairfax’s troops when they were billeted in the town.

Stunning sundials

When looking at a church, cathedral or other monument be aware of the possibility that it might have an ancient sundial, high up, usually on the South wall.

From the early 13^th Century, before the invention of the clock and the wrist watch, churches in Europe were built with sundials on their south facing walls so that people knew when it was time to attend mass by looking at the sundial on the church wall.

Evidence exists of ancient sundials in the Middle East, Greece and China from about 1500 BC.  In 164 BC the Romans began to divide daylight into hours.   A 1^st Century Roman architectural engineer Marcus Vitruvius described thirteen sundials in his books, De Architectura.

In Chaucer’s 14^th Century Canterbury tales, the ‘Gentil Monk’ tells the time on his hand held, cylindrical Shepherds dial. Most sundials on churches are Vertical dials

Mason Signs

In 2002 I noticed a couple of fascinating signs and symbols carved into blocks of stone on the walls of the Augustinian abbey in Roncesvalles.  One appeared to be a geometric symbol with a Star of David superimposed on six joined circles. The other carving, just below this symbol, looked like a bird or a shoe.  
Chatting to the curator of the museum I learned that stones from the original 12^th century hospice had been recycled to construct the ‘new’ abbey and that these were probably reused stones.  She suggested that the shoe engraving could be that of the original stone cutter or mason as the shoe mark was often chosen by workers who could not write.  She thought that the large symbol could be that of a Master Mason.

As Romanesque architecture developed into Gothic, the Way of St James facilitated the movement of builders and architects between France and northern Spain.  Masons from all over Europe worked on the churches, cathedrals and monasteries constructed on the pilgrimage roads to Santiago de Compostela.  One theory on the enigmatic symbol is that it represents a hexagram or Hexad, sometimes known as a Thunder Stone.  As James the Greater was known as the Son of Thunder this theory suggests that the symbol could represent San Tiago.  Another theory links it to the legend of Charlemagne and Roland.

Some marks found on stones are positional and indicated where a particular stone should be placed within the structure. Carpenters and other tradesmen also had proprietary marks but few of these have survived as well as the mason marks. Some marks are easily recognizable and appear on different structures in different locations. 

Masonic marks are the same all over Europe and one can find the same signs in most medieval buildings. Although it is possible that masons in different countries chose the same signs (such as a fish or a shoe) it is quite feasible, when seeing the same sign on different buildings in close proximity, that the same mason worked on these structures during his lifetime. Theoretically, one could follow a medieval mason by the signs he left on the structures where he worked. 

So, the next time you walk a Camino, look a little more closely at the walls of the churches, cathedrals and monuments.  Those strange drawings, marks or initials you see carved into the stones might not be common graffiti but centuries old mason signs. 
For more photos:  http://peregrinations.kenyon.edu/vol3_1/photo_essays/stones/stones.html