Wow, 16 days walking everyday and finally we get to stay put. This is is a perfect town to do it as it is small and has a few interest sights to see so it will not require us to do much walking. For the first time in this trip some party goers kept us up from our bedtime. A group was very boisterous by our window down below. After a while, I was just so tired and fell asleep. Because I knew we were not going anywhere the next day, the staying awake did not stress me out. We were lucky to be able to check in at 8 a.m. at the Parador.
This parador was originally a 14th century hospital for pilgrims.
Santo Domingo de Calzada is buried in the church. He saw how difficult it was for pilgrims to go to Santiago so he dedicated his life to improving the roads around his town and helping the pilgrims. We toured the church and it is quite fascinating to learn about the history of the chapels and the many medieval age art work. The alabaster sepulcher of Santo Domingo is beautiful. My brother Bill, who loved visiting the burial places of saints would have loved to have seen St. Dominic's tomb. He named One of his son's Dominic so he must have a special fondness for St. Dominic.
The town has an amazing tall bell tower and we walked up to look at it. It has great views and it was great to see the huge bells. I love hearing the bells ring all over the Spanish towns. I could never quite figure out when the bells rang because it never just rang on the hour and sometimes on the hour it would have more rings than the number of that hour. I asked the person at the the bell tower place. He explained to me that at quarter past the hour the bell rang once, at the half hour twice. The third quarter thrice and at the hour 4 times plus the number of hours. However, when there was mass, it rang more on the half hour and the hour to let people know there was mass.
Our stay in the parador was a real treat and Santo Domingo de Calzada a nice little town to spend our rest day!
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