Camino de Santiago - Public Art & A Telephone Museum

Public Art, Graffiti & Murals
There are many interesting demonstrations of public art along the Camino. Some of this can be seen in the statues honouring the Apostle St. James, while other statues depict local people. Murals are quite common and, in some places, graffiti is widespread. Some graffiti is strongly political.The photos demonstrate what I mean better than words.

  

Telephone Museum in Vilar de Mazarife

After having a great break day in the city of Leon, our next destination was the small town of Vilar de Mazarife (400 population). Like so many towns we walked through, it is set in the midst of a vast farming area and, while quiet like so many others, it seemed very friendly to pilgrims. After settling into the Tio Pepe albergue (private) and completing our normal routine, we set out to explore the town a bit. This didn't take much time and we were able to find a super mercado (supermarket) to purchase the contents of our lunch for the following day.

As we were exiting the store, a bus stopped near us and a few people got off. One of the people was a man a bit older than me and my friends. He immediately spotted us and, despite the language barrier, insisted on taking us to see something. We had no idea what to expect, but a couple of minutes later we arrived at a local telephone museum where he introduced us to his friend who created and operates the museum. While the museum had a notable collection of old telephones and related communication devices, it also had many things that would be classified as interesting junk. For about 30 minutes or so, they showed us through the museum speaking completely in Spanish. While we certainly did not understand much of what they said, we were able to communicate with a bit of the Spanish we had learned and also by using hand signals, head nods and smiles. One of the most interesting things was when they took us into a deep cellar that been used for wine storage in years past. Earthen wine storage is common in many areas of Spain. The cellar had also been used to press grapes for wine making and the original equipment was still in place. This can only be described as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.