Valenca, Portugal

We were hosts at a pilgrim albergue in Camino de Santiago. On arrival, the owners had left, while neighbours and friends came in turns bringing us keys for the different house doors and pieces of information. Slowly we got the story of the owning family and the story of the place. One neighbour brought his sheep to the field everyday, and it was a perfect excuse to stay for a talk. We took good care of the house while we had the fortune of hosting pilgrims and offering them dinner in exchange for personal stories, nice conversations and camino confessions. We learnt to keep an albergue, and most important: we learnt about Camino’s spirit, the reasons making the pilgrims go walk it, finding or not what they were searching for, and meeting themselves in every step.