Day: May 6, 2026

Palencia Cathedral: Catedral-Basílica de San Antolín

The largest cathedral in Spain is in Sevilla (Gothic). The second largest is in Toledo (high Gothic) And the third largest is in Palencia (Gothic, Renaissance).

This morning we paid 5 euros each (senior rate) to tour the one here.

I’ll show photos below of some of the highlights for me.

The cathedral, started in the 11th century, is built over a 7th century Visigoth crypt which holds the remains of San Antolín.
In the cathedral museum, large painting by El Greco, “The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian”, 1577. Not just attributed as was the Michaelangelo painting we saw in Logroño. Clearly El Greco. I loved seeing this.
This beautiful piece is a 15th century Gothic altarpiece known as the Ratablo de la Visitación.

I have tried to get a photo of the outside that shows the beauty and size of the cathedral but have not been satisfied with any of my shots. The above was an old photo in the museum. Must have been taken in the 1800s??
Since I wasn’t satisfied with any of my outside shots, I decided to settle for this one with a stork’s nest and the stork’s head sticking out.

Day trip to Sahagún

Yesterday, May 5, we caught a 7:45 am train from Palencia to Sahagún. It’s a 45 minute train ride.

Sahagún was where we had originally planned to end our Camino and where we had mailed our suitcase containing things we only needed for the last week in Zamora and on the airplane. We needed to go to Sahagún to pick up the suitcase.

The Spanish Post Office does a great service for pilgrims letting you mail things from one PO on the Camino to another for decent rates.

Our return train to Palencia didn’t leave till 3:15 so we had several hours to spend in Sahagún.

I’m pretty sure we saw at least 200 pilgrims while we were there. Sahagún is the exact midway point on the Camino Frances: half way between Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Santiago.

A lovely young employee in the PO gave us our bag and then I, with some trepidation, asked “would it be possible to leave it here with you while we are out for the day”. She didn’t hesitate one bit but said “of course”. She told us we had to get it before the PO closed at 2:30 and not to come when she’d be on her break between 1:00 and 1:15. We were glad not to have to lug the suitcase around with us all day.

We then asked for a recommendation for where to eat breakfast and another woman in the PO, a customer, walked us outside and showed us where to go. She didn’t lead us wrong. We had a most enjoyable breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed out on the Camino. Yep, that was our plan for the day. We didn’t walk too far, about 4 miles out and 4 miles back. I counted the pilgrims we passed when walking back to town: 92 peregrinos and 7 bicigrinos (bicycle pilgrims). This was mid-day. We were surprised to see so many that time of day.

On the Camino, you seldom see pilgrims heading any way but in the same direction you are walking: west. Nearly everyone smiled at us and said “hola” and most had a quizzical look in their eye like “huh, why are you walking the wrong way? You don’t look like locals.”

Heading out on the Camino in Sahagún
The cliche is that “the Camino provides”. Just at the point where we needed to turn back on our walk, we came to a great bar, the first on the walk. I had a Kas Limón, my new go-to drink when I’m thirsty, and Charlie had a café con leche. And, of course, we used the aseos!
We met a “burro-grino” as well!! I asked if I could take his photo.
As we were walking back into town, Charlie and I discussed the possibility we’d run into someone we’d met already. We both thought there’d be little chance since most people would be ahead of us by now. But, we passed this couple above and they recognized us first. You might recognize them from a photo we posted of pilgrims visiting outside our albergue in Atapuerca. They are a really nice couple from Montreal. So much fun to run into them.
This is Charlie when we were waiting for our train back to Palencia. We were cold. Charlie’s hair was so white and shiny, I told him he looked like the sky and clouds with his white hair and blue ear warmer. The photo didn’t quite pick up how white his hair looked in the light.

May 4, 5, 6: In Palencia

On Monday, we explored the town. Ran some errands. Rested. Charlie did a 3 mile round trip walk to Decathlon to get a cap to replace the one he lost on the bridge in Nájara.

On Tuesday we took a train to Sahagún and back. I’ll talk about that in a separate post.

Today, Wednesday, we toured the Cathedral, cooked a fabulous lunch of pork chops, fresh (green) asparagus, salad, fresh bread and butter, and then took a walk along the canal that leads out of town. I’ll do a separate post about the cathedral.

Some photos around Palencia:

Elegant old man.
One of the first thing I noticed walking the streets is how many people I’d see chatting. I think it’s a small enough place that people always run into people they know when they go out. I liked this woman’s bright red shoes.
People waiting in line to buy lottery tickets.
Palencia Post Office. The Correos all over Spain are often painted yellow/gold and some are quite elegant.
The canal where we walked today
When we were walking we noticed this hill in the distance on the other side of the city and we both thought it was probably a cell tower on top. Something told us to look more closely so we aimed our phone telephoto lenses at it. We looked it up. It is called Cristo del Otero. It is an art deco statue of Jesus, erected in 1931, the same year as Christ the Redeemer was erected in Rio de Janeiro. This one is the second highest Christ statue in the world (after the one in Rio). Artist: Victorio Macho.