LaGuardia to Navarette

 Prior to today’s walk, we were treated to a view of the inside of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Kings. One of 2 churches inside the walled off section of LaGuardia, the sanctuary is fronted by an enormous porto hand chiseled from stone. Dating from the 13th century, the Porto consists of a large statue of Mary in the middle with her surrounded by the 12 disciples on the lower section and the story on Mary’s life above her head. The 25ft+ structure also has depictions of prophets, women saints and angel forming an arch above the entire scene, originally standing outdoors, the Porto was enclosed within a building in the 16th century and hand painted with brilliant colors. We had Curine as our guide as she played a recording speaking to each area as it was slowly lit. Stunning!

And just when we thought it was done, we walked through the Porto doors and viewed the sanctuary. Even more breathtaking. Hand carved wooden statues with more of Mary’s story behind the altar as well as many biblical scenes depicted in alcoves next to the altar and down the sides including moveable heads of the members of the Last Supper (used to parade around the village) and an impressive scene of Jesus’ birth with moveable carved statues used during Christmas services. 

Pumped up by what we saw we headed out of LaGuardia and onto Navarette. Outside of me not turning in the key to the room John and I stayed in (😬) and forcing Fr Jose to turn back, we used the daily meditation from Paul about identifying those people in our lives who made a difference to us and set out on a relatively easy walk through the rolling hills of the terraced vineyards and made our way to the LaPuebla de Labarca for lunch at Olga’s place. A pastoral walk that enabled us to mostly rest from yesterday’ more difficult hike before heading on our final leg to Navarette. We passed through Fuenmayor , the source of most of the water in the Rioja valley through its springs stopping in the church of Our Lady of Sorrows, a place visited by Ingatius on his way to Jerusalem and again were treated to spectacular enourmous carved and painted scenes in the Sanctaury. The walk to Navarette was more industrial and more flat until we climbed up into the town until we reached our hotel for the night, the Posada Ignatius, where Ignatius stayed while in town. Before we were finished for the day, we attended a Spanish Language mass at Our Lady of the Assumption church which houses the world’s largest behind the altar sanctuary with more statues of Mary, Jesus and other relevant to the times saints, this time not just painted but covered in real gold. We’ll get pictures of all of these churches in the blog later but even they won’t do justice to what we’ve seen. Navarette is a town where in Camino Ignaciano crosses with the French leg of the Camino Santiago and Peligrinos (pilgrams) from both Caminos and including us were given a special blessing by the pastor. Some photos, another late dinner and we somehow managed to make it back to our rooms to sleep.

About 14 miles covered today in the just over 4 hours of hiking. Tomorrow an early start on our way to Javier, hiking to Longmont before skipping ahead on the trail with a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Javier.

It may not come across in this blog, but we all our enjoying the trip. Both the physical and spiritual journeys are progressing aided by the camaraderie, conversation, and laughter amongst us Regians.