It seemed appropriate to have a Saint Augustine quote for today after all the beautiful churches we've seen. We toured the cathedral yesterday, but today we toured several other large churches in town a couple of the monasteries and a convent. The monastery churches and the convent Chapel or incredible. Each Church we've been in makes the one before it seem less impressive by comparison. The altar pieces in the churches are amazing with hundreds of characters that are all unique.
With Shane working on his doctorate degree and concentrating on st. Augustin's writgs, I made a point of looking for St Augustine you many of the churches. He would always be there but sometimes we had to really hunt. In the large Monastery Church for example, in the choir area in the asp of the cathedral, each choir seat on the lower section hadt a separate scene from the life of Mary and each choir seat in the upper section was carved with one of the church fathers. There were a total of 80 seats on each level. I was able to find St Augustine on one of the seats. Then when we went into the loft of the church there was another choir section carved with different themes but St Augustine was on one of the seats there as well.
I think a professor could teach the entire semester on one Altarpiece or one choir loft.
This morning at breakfast we ran into our four friends from Australia. They happen to walk by while we were having our coffee. Later in the day we'd stop for a drink and we ran into them again. Yet a third time when Laura and I went to get a rooftop tour of the cathedral, the Australians were there. So we can take a hint and we went out to dinner with the four tonight and had Tapas and wine and beer and then walked to a other Cafe for hot chocolate. Tomorrow two head back for Australian, one is hiking to Finisterra and thr fourth is staying in Santiago to tour. We've exchanged emails and phone numbers. Now we have an excuse to go to Australia and someone who I have a spare room set aside for us.
It felt strange not to walk today with a pack. But strange enough at the end of the day I checked my Fitbit and we had done 16 kilometers just touring in town. I also had quite a few steps as we had to climb up into the towers of the cathedral to get to the roof.
I always remember ehen the boys were little Troy always wanted to get on the roof of whatever building we were in. One of his big disappointment was not getting on the roof of the Biltmore house because of snow one year when we visited Asheville.
The roof we got on today was from 1100, but they said 10% of it had been repaired. I put the second roof on my house since I lived in it -' what am I doing wrong?
Tomorrow we're going to tour some of the smaller sites and go to the Saturday vigil in the cathedral for the pilgrim Mass. Wewe fly home on Sunday. It's been a great trip and a good second Camino but now we have to plan for the third Camino so we can get to the ocean.
