Twilight Zone

Today has been the strangest day. At the present I am seated on a throne chair in front of an altarpiece in what used to be a  sanctuary of a seminary but now is a gite. The song Silent Night is playing in the background. A French couple just wandered in to have a look around and they seem rather confused. 

The cathedral across the street is locked and has a sign up saying that the door is ferme because of the pigeons. I mentioned that to the gite owner and she said she had a key for it. A group of us went over to check it out. It obviously needs a ton of restoration but was once an important church.

The legend associated with it is about St Quitterie who had pledged her virginity to God. Her fiancé had her beheaded when she rejected him and the townspeople carried her head up a hill to this spot where it rests today in the crypt. The basilica was built in her honor over the 6th C crypt. Earlier pagan deities had been venerated on this spot since ancient times and it became an important spot on the Camino route due to the cathedral, seminary and location.