It takes a walk through only a few villages and hamlets along El Camino for the pilgrim to ask in puzzlement: Where is everyone? Empty streets during the siesta hours would be obvious, but every hour of the day? Has siesta become permanent? I talked with other pilgrims about this phenomenon and no-one could explain it. It remains a mystery.
Here is one theory: Besides the source of income from farming (steady and maybe growing) and from pilgrims (unsteady and maybe declining), the means to make a living in rural areas are very limited. This region has benefited very little from the country's industrial expansion and economic growth since World War II. There are virtually no industries, no mining, just a few quarries and some lumber cuttings. Thousands of miles of new, EU funded four-lane highways, rail tracks and bridges seem to go nowhere, skirting the villages, with almost no traffic. So very few employment opportunities and very little to generate income. Consequently, people have left the villages and moved to the cities.
The result is depressing. Many houses in the villages are crumbling or falling into serious disrepair. Collapsed roofs, missing roofs, walls with gaping holes, broken windows, boarded windows and doors are everywhere. The owner has gone and waiting for better times. Yet, across the street or next to the ruin is a new or beautifully restored house. Obviously, someone has given up on the village while someone has seen a chance to find peace and quiet.
A serious consequence of the exodus from the villages is that services are gone, too. There is rarely more than a small café or convenience store, maybe an albergue for the pilgrims. No bank, no post office, no kindergarten, no school.
But there is always the village church or chapel, built centuries ago by pilgrims or their friends from all parts of Europe. I suggest you stay long enough in some of the towns to consider the size the churches along the Camino. Santa Maria la Blanca XIII in Villacázar de Sirga for example. The town has 200 inhabitants and they must be immensely proud of this magnificent Templar church, now declared a national monument. In Los Arcos, population 1,300, visit the splendid Iglesia de Santa Maria de los Arcos XII with elements of with Gothic, Baroque and Classic in addition to its original Romanesque.
Here is one theory: Besides the source of income from farming (steady and maybe growing) and from pilgrims (unsteady and maybe declining), the means to make a living in rural areas are very limited. This region has benefited very little from the country's industrial expansion and economic growth since World War II. There are virtually no industries, no mining, just a few quarries and some lumber cuttings. Thousands of miles of new, EU funded four-lane highways, rail tracks and bridges seem to go nowhere, skirting the villages, with almost no traffic. So very few employment opportunities and very little to generate income. Consequently, people have left the villages and moved to the cities.
The result is depressing. Many houses in the villages are crumbling or falling into serious disrepair. Collapsed roofs, missing roofs, walls with gaping holes, broken windows, boarded windows and doors are everywhere. The owner has gone and waiting for better times. Yet, across the street or next to the ruin is a new or beautifully restored house. Obviously, someone has given up on the village while someone has seen a chance to find peace and quiet.
A serious consequence of the exodus from the villages is that services are gone, too. There is rarely more than a small café or convenience store, maybe an albergue for the pilgrims. No bank, no post office, no kindergarten, no school.
But there is always the village church or chapel, built centuries ago by pilgrims or their friends from all parts of Europe. I suggest you stay long enough in some of the towns to consider the size the churches along the Camino. Santa Maria la Blanca XIII in Villacázar de Sirga for example. The town has 200 inhabitants and they must be immensely proud of this magnificent Templar church, now declared a national monument. In Los Arcos, population 1,300, visit the splendid Iglesia de Santa Maria de los Arcos XII with elements of with Gothic, Baroque and Classic in addition to its original Romanesque.
The churches are always open for the modern pilgrim with Mass held morning and evenings. A volunteer custodian and guide will welcome you and point out the architecture, stained glass window, baptismal font and burial stone noteworthy for this particular church, and will stamp your passbook.
The Camino churches were built at a time when Christianity was rising quickly, when the number of pilgrims was double of what it is today, and when the churches served also as hostel, hospital (and the pilgrims had much poorer health than today), as social service center, school, notary public, and community kitchen. They were very busy,
At the center of the church was always the altar for communion and the Camino churches' altars are truly beautiful and impressive. In even the tiniest village one can walk into a thechurch or chapel and find a magnificent altar, carved in stone or wood painted in bright colors or covered with gold. Most often they are triptych or polyptych altars, i.e. constructed in three or more panels, meant for easy transportation from the artist's shop, maybe in another country, to the church. Sometimes the altar was so beautiful and its artist so famous that the altar became a traveling sensation. And sometimes the altar got stuck in a tiny village in northern Spain along the Camino for today's pilgrim to admire.
In today's Spain these churches and altars are completely out of proportion, which says more about today's Spain than the churches and their altars. Do not pass the opportunity to open that squeaky, old wooden church door and see what is behind it.
