Postcard from Burgos, Spain: A powerful abbess and underfoot devils

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Above: Monastery of Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas

It’s not easy to reign over a contested kingdom when you ascend to the throne at age two. Think of the royal intrigue that would trigger – all the scheming regents and relatives trying to unseat you before you can toddle down a hallway on your own.

But Alfonso VIII (1155-1214), King of Castile and Toledo, managed to ward off a legion of enemies to hold onto his throne – not without assistance and numerous defeats and victories on the battlefield along the way. And crusades against the Alamohads. To consolidate his power and secure a powerful ally while still a teenager, Alfonso gained the hand of 12-year-old Eleanor (Leonora) of England (1161-1214), a daughter of the contentious couple King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

At Leonora’s behest, the young royals founded the Monastery of Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas in 1187. She bore 11 children before dying less than a month after her husband. The couple and numerous of their children were buried in elaborately decorated chapels within the expansive monastery. Royal weddings held there included that of Eleanor of Castile (1241-1290) to King Edward I of England (1239-1307) while Eleanor was 12 and Edward still a duke.

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Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: ‘Nobodies’ and enslaved awaken walls

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Above: A haunting image of a tightly bound slave on his side at the bottom of a wall is one of many works emerging from the Colectivo Subterraneos.

A prior post introduced Oaxaca’s Colectivo Subterraneos along with its series of “Los Nadies” on a pink-walled house in Barrio de Xochimilco, but these figures have popped up throughout the historic center of the city.

Unlike the scrambled mix-and-match style of the figures on the pink structure, most of these “Nobodies” are privileged enough to have retained their own original bodies. Prints of slaves also plaster buildings, images so powerful that Gord Goble described them in Penticon Now as both beautiful and terrifying portrayals of “man’s inhumanity to man.”

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Postcard from Burgos, Spain: Pilgrims should indulge in Santiago’s symbolic seafood

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Above: Broiled zamburinas, Gallaecian scallops, at La Cantina Burgos

Bronze scallop shells embedded in the streets of Burgos lead pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago route to the Cathedral. The trail of shells conveniently passes right by La Cantina de Burgos, where one can find perfectly prepared grilled zamburinas, Gallaecian scallops. Earlier in this same trip, a blog post explains both the shell’s connection to Saint James and the bicolored anatomy of the bivalves.

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