It's hard to stop walking the Camino. The procession moves ever onward. Many are loners out here. At cafes, you'll see three or four pilgrims at separate tables, alone with their phones or thoughts. Some are escaping responsibilities, like Fast Dan from Birmingham, who had just two weeks off from caring for his aging parents. Out here, he seemed animated by his fugitive self -- enlivened by freedom and motion. Others, like Kern from the Netherlands, walk fast and far, possessed by a restlessness they're not ready to surrender. I've met people, walked with them, and watched them vanish into the hills. The trail pulls you forward, away from attachments. That's why it was difficult, even disorienting, to take a rest day in Gijon.

Still, I needed one. The narrow hostel bed had become less forgiving. When I stood, I felt it: a deep fatigue in my hips and back -- not just muscular, but structural. So, I gave in to the pause. One day off. I'd earned it.

I started my morning with a quiet visit to the old cathedral above Gijon's beach and bay. It sits in Cimavilla, the old quarter, overlooking the ocean -- on a perch of eternal real estate. The medieval Catholics had an eye for property value. Inside, the stone walls were cool and damp, the air faintly scented with wax and incense -- frankincense, maybe myrrh. The vaulted ceilings and thick pillars offer a stillness I've come to appreciate. These church stops, though brief, are becoming a familiar respite.

From there, I walked into town and found breakfast at an Irish pub. Bars do much of the culinary heavy lifting in Spain. I'd read there are more bars here than in all of Western Europe. Then, off to the public library -- my place for reading and writing. On the way, something drew me toward another church -- the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The basilica rises with Romanesque gravity from a corner near the library. Built in 1912, it looks older, with its thick stone, frescoed apse, and stained-glass portals. Unlike cathedrals, which serve as liturgical seats for bishops and often lean toward austerity, basilicas are sites of special devotion. Their design -- ornate, detailed, more expressive -- is meant to inspire. This church features side pulpits perched like balconies; remnants of older liturgical forms not found in the more pragmatic cathedrals along the Camino Norte.

At the library, I spoke with an older man named Octavio, who visits daily to read, always in the same seat. He told me the church no longer holds the power it once did. Mostly women go now, he said. The men are in bars. He called religion a racket. Harsh, perhaps, but in working-class Asturias, the church's long alignment with monarchists, landowners, and conservative elites has bred suspicion. For many, religion became associated with state control, not spiritual salvation.

That alignment didn't happen by accident. Catholic social teaching affirms the right to private property -- not as absolute, but as essential to human dignity. Thomas Aquinas wrote that while the Earth's goods are meant for all, individuals need stewardship over property to care for families and contribute to the common good. But that stewardship carries obligations: wealth must serve justice, not just accumulation. This idea sets Catholic thought apart from both Marxism and unregulated capitalism.

During the Spanish Civil War -- a struggle between authoritarianism and communism -- the basilica across the street was used as a prison but was spared destruction. One story claims it was because of a statue of Jesus draped in a red robe. Revolutionaries hung a sign from it: Red Christ, we respect you as one of ours. Whether that was reverence, propaganda, or symbolic ceasefire, the church remained intact, even as others were defaced or burned. Regardless, in Spain, time has been a good steward.

On the Camino, it's easy to focus only on the next town, the next bed, the next stamp in your "credencial." But stopping -- truly stopping -- lets something else in. Stillness invites stories. I listen more closely to people, and maybe more importantly, to the walls. These churches, these cities, these winding streets -- they're trying to tell me something. Taking time to heal, to reflect, is part of the pilgrimage, too. And Gijon, with all its history and contradictions, offered just that.