Total distance: 47.1 km. Total climb: 650 m.

It’s a cool, cloudy morning. I wake before dawn and take a walking tour of La Guardia. The self-guiding brochure identifies several historic buildings in the center of town, many with escudos, engraved coats of arms of the families that once lived at each site.

Today’s ride is a short one: only about 50 km. The departure is at 10:00, slightly later than usual. After getting our mechanic, John-Giebler, to swap the too-soft saddle on my bike for a firmer one with a vented center I head out. The road is fast and passes vineyards and other fields. The white chalk arrows marked on the road by our guide direct me off the highway for a brief detour through the small town of Samaniego. Around noon I reach Labastida, where the words “IN/OUT” written on the road in chalk indicate an optional stop for food, water or sightseeing. I take the opportunity to stop at a bar near a fountain in front of the church for café. It is Sunday morning and the townspeople are gathering for church. (Later, after returning home, I will discover that the organ in this church was used to record a CD of Spanish Baroque music that I bought several years ago.)

The next short leg is a high-speed run ending with a bridge across the Río Ebro and entry into Haro, the capital of the Rioja wine region. The town’s broad plaza with 4-storey buildings somehow reminds me of Brussels. I spot a stork nest on the roof high above a row of bars. Another quick ride through fields of grain takes me past a large church in Bañares and into Santo Domingo de la Calzada around 1:30.

This town is relatively small in population (5,700) but significant in terms of its legends related to the Camino de Santiago. One legend we will discuss later when we visit the cathedral. But the first legend concerns surrounds the man for whom the town is named, an 11^th-century hermit named Domingo García. Apparently he failed in his studies at a monastery. While living as a hermit in the forests around the Río Oja he had a vision that led him to dedicate his life to serving pilgrims on the Camino. He built a stone bridge across the river and single handedly cleared a road through 37 kilometers of impassable forest. (A miracle for which he was eventually canonized.) During his lifetime his efforts drew the attention of the local king, who gave him permission to turn an abandoned fort into a pilgrim hospice. From this grew the town that bears his name. (Calzada translates as “causeway,” by the way.) A church he built at the end of his life was replaced in the mid-12^th c. by the cathedral we see today.

After check-in at the Hotel El Correjidor I take my SLR camera and zoom lens for a quick survey of the exterior of the cathedral. The doors have been locked for the afternoon, a common practice at churches in Spain (even on Sunday, it appears), as at museums and places of business. Then I look for a place to have lunch. The bar Dos Caballeros is right next to the cathedral, and Terry C. waves to me from inside. She is having a drink with Dean and her husband Rex, who are both engrossed in a tennis match televised from Paris. I join them and order a draft beer. On the lunch menu pimientos rellenos catches my eye. I find this dish of roasted red peppers stuffed with a spicy tomato sauce more flavorful than the Mexican counterpart served by most of the California restaurants where I’ve tried it. After my meal I leave the group in the bar, but agree to meet with them later to case the town for a place to eat dinner. (This is one of the few nights where dinner is not included as part of the tour.)

Later, when Rex, Terry and I set out we find that the cathedral is now open, and we take a look inside. This is a pure Romanesque cathedral, constructed in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. In most of the cathedrals and churches a highlight of the interior is the altarpiece, a uniquely Spanish version called a retablo. These massive wood structures are aptly described in CCH as “large, theatrical backdrops to the mass . . . [which] combine narrative plaques with sculpted freestanding figures set into architectural niches.” A retablo is like a compound stage with a dozen scenes in progress involving biblical characters or saints. The first of these seem to have been conceived a couple centuries after most of the cathedrals were built and their evolution continued into the early 19^th century. In the early Gothic versions the scenes were painted on wood; by the time of the later Renaissance and Baroque retablos the scenes featured figures carved in wood and painted, having relief as deep as the gilded columns that framed them. A unique feature of the Renaissance retablo in Santo Domingo de la Calzada is that it is not behind the altar. It was moved to a side chapel in the 1990s, which revealed that the pillars between the altar and the ambulatory behind it were finely decorated.

Another feature unique to Santo Domingo is the presence of live chickens in the cathedral. These were practically the first thing that Rex, Terry and I saw when we entered. It may seem like a very odd practice, but the tradition dates back centuries. Explaining it requires a bit of a “shaggy dog story,” well told by told in Off The Road by Jack Hitt:

The miracle of this area occurred in the fourteenth century. One day, a pilgrim family-father, mother, and son-arrived in Santo Domingo. At the inn where they stayed, the owner's daughter developed a crush on the boy or, in the words of the sixteenth-century Englishman Andrew Boorde, “for ther was a wenche the whych wolde haue had hym to medyll with her carnally.” But the boy's virtue could not be compromised while he walked. (Which is a miracle itself; one of the oldest sayings of the road-Ir romero y volver ramera-translates “Start out a pilgrim, return a whore.”) Angry at being scorned, the girl slipped a silver cup in the boy's rucksack. When the family was leaving town, she informed the local authorities of the theft. Chased down, the boy proclaimed his innocence, but he was sentenced to death and hanged from a tree at the edge of town.

The grieving parents walked on to Santiago to fulfill their pledge. On their return trip, as they approached Santo Domingo, they could still see the silhouette of their son's body dangling from a branch. (In some parts of Europe, the indignity of a death sentence was rounded out by leaving the body to rot out of the rope.) As they neared the tree, though, they could see their son moving: He spoke right up, explaining that their dutiful journey to Santiago had won James's heart. The saint had returned the boy's life and then held him up by the arms until their return. To us, perhaps, a pretty serious miracle. But in the Middle Ages, various states of unconsciousness were thought to be “death,” so resurrection was actually common. The story continues.

The parents ran to the town mayor and insisted that he come and see what had happened. The mayor, always depicted in paintings as a portly, well-fed bureaucrat, was seated at his dinner table, ready to cut into two hot roasted chickens. He dismissed the parents as insane and complained that their crying was interrupting his meal. Annoyed at their persistence, he finally shouted, “Your boy can no more be alive than these chickens could get up and crow!”  Immediately, the main course stirred. The roasters kicked away the garnishes and vegetables. They stretched their plucked brown wings. They squawked and danced across the table. The boy was cut down and the miracle proclaimed. The story of resurrected chickens had a profound tug on the medieval mind. Hundreds of versions of the miracle-dead and dancing fowl- can be found throughout Europe, and paintings of Santo Domingo's chickens can been seen as far east as Uberlingen and Rothenburg ob der Tauber .

Having satisfied ourselves with a quick look at the chickens, the retablo and the impressive marble tomb of Santo Domingo, Rex and Terry and I go out in search of food (something other than chicken, we resolve). Santo Domingo is a good walking town. In many of the larger towns we will see, the central, historic area where we stay has narrow streets that are not suitable for motor vehicles. The heart of Santo Domingo is like this. We meander through a labyrinth of narrow streets, looking in shop windows. Eventually we run into Dean and sit down at an outdoor table of a place called Bar Hidalgo. With our beers we share a few rounds of tapas like fried calamari, shrimp canapés, and finger sandwiches. As we eat and talk, we can’t help noticing as platter after platter of bocadillos are carried into the bar from its sister restaurant across the street. Clearly, tapas are popular. 

It is early Sunday evening, and, judging by the pedestrian traffic, everyone who is not sitting in a bar with drinks and tapas is out strolling the streets in their Sunday finest. (From previous visits to France, Italy and Greece, I know that European city dwellers tend to dress up more than Americans.) There are, of course, a lot of young, attractive Spanish women, but that somehow seems irrelevant to my current purpose. I recall reading in the published journals of two different modern-day pilgrims who walked the Camino across Spain that the rigors of pilgrimage tended to decrease their sexual desire. (Contrary to the Spanish saying cited by Jack Hitt in the tale above.) It is interesting for me to watch people of both genders and all ages, to wonder about their lives and to observe their expressions and social interactions, but young ladies hold no particular attraction. It seems quite the opposite for my fellow rider Dean, however. His eyes are trained on every woman who approaches, and the sight of an attractive one awakens his predatory instincts. And this is my first opportunity to witness the bold, unsubtle technique he will employ many times during our trip.

When he sees a woman of interest, Dean leaps up and approaches her. Using gestures to translate his English, spoken with a Midwest accent, into universal language, he indicates that he’d like her to pose with him for a photo. To my surprise, he usually succeeds. Then, as accomplice Rex C. pretends to have difficulty operating the disposable camera, Dean puts his arm around the woman, waiting for the shutter to click. I eventually realize that it’s just good-natured fun. Most of the women he targets respond to his innocent charm and seem tolerant, even pleased to comply with his requests. Here in Santo Domingo I see the procedure repeated with a young woman from the tourist office, a nun in white, and a blonde, blue-eyed woman from the Netherlands. The last of these is walking alone and looks a bit wary as Dean stops her. Like most Dutch people she speaks English. She agrees to pose for the photo but doesn’t offer many words and hurries away after the photo is taken.

A while later our three guides happen to stroll by, and even though this is a night for dinner on our own, they invite us to join them for dinner at Casa Madariaga. It is later than usual, after 9:30, by the time we are seated. They order for us an assortment of things, which is served on a lazy susan at a circular table: a green salad, assorted cold cuts – jamon serrano, chorizo and salchicha – esparagos with garlic/basil salsa, queso de cabra (manchego), gambas ajillos (in butter seasoned with garlic and herbs) and more gambas in revueltos (scrambled eggs). The wine is a nice rioja. For dessert I have melon balls steeped in oporto.

Midnight is approaching when we leave the restaurant and walk back toward the hotel. The streets are quiet, as you’d expect late on a Sunday night. The cathedral is bathed in light, a striking contrast against the black sky.