Pilgrims' mountain stopover restored

A MOUNTAIN refuge on the , great pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela is once again offering footsore walkers hot food and shelter, centuries after the last • pilgrim left.
The hostel, in the tiny village of Rabanal del Camino, in northern Spain's Leon Mountains, ,is to be blessed next week by —"Bishop Antonio Briva Mirabent of Astorga, the nearest town.
But some 1300 modern-day pilgrims from 27 countries have already stopped off at the shelter, thought to have been built at about the same time as the Romanesque village church of Santa Maria, in the few weeks it has been open for business.
It has been dedicated to a twelfth century hermit, Gaucelmo, who lived in the mountains near Rabanal.
Most of the 20 other refuges offering shelter to walkers and cyclists trudging along the road to the shrine of St James are schools with basic accommodation. Few were used by medieval pilgrims.
English and Spanish members of the Confraternity of St James, who helped raise £50,000 to help bring the ancient building back to use, will attend the opening ceremony.
The hostel is an one of the most difficult stretches of the Santiago route, mid-way between Astorga and Ponferrada.
Rabanal, then guarded by the Knights Templar, was an important stop on the way to Santiago when the medieval travel writer Aymeric Picaud passed by in the twelfth century.