Rest Day

Camino Del Norte Route of El Camino de Santiago. Comillas, Spain- Day 14, 22 days to go.

After two weeks of walking the more difficult Northern route, we decided to have a “rest day” of only 7 miles after yesterday’s 18 miles, and to gear up for tomorrow’s 20 miles. It’s also my birthday, and it was a good excuse to stop and play tourist and eat chocolate mousse cake.

Maybe even better than chocolate was visiting Antoni Gaudi’s “Capriche” villa. Gaudi, a Catalan modernismo architect and the genius behind the Sagrada Familia and Guell park, was commissioned to build “the Capriche” or the Whim for Maximo Diaz de Quijano in 1883. Gaudi felt everything in art and architecture was first inspired by nature.

“The great book, always open and which we should make an effort to read, is that of Nature.” Antonio Gaudi

Next door to the Capriche was the Capilla-Panteon where Gaudi also placed his signature touch inside making furniture.

Situated in the gardens of Sobrellano, this impressive Neo-Gothic building was the work of architect Joan Martorell finished in 1881. The tours were booked so we stayed in the gardens and admired the outside.

Afterward on the “Dia de Katarina” I walked the beach and thought about the role of nature in art and came to an understanding of why some art pieces move me just as nature stirs and restores me.