Valdeviejas

Valdeviejas sits in the province of León, in the Maragatería region, about a kilometre west of Astorga. The Camino passes the Ermita del Ecce Homo on the left as it leaves Astorga, with the village itself off to the right. Valdeviejas belongs to the municipality of Astorga and is the first inhabited point on the route west out of the city.

The village has been a Camino stop since the Middle Ages. A pilgrim hospital was founded here in 1481 by Sancha Pérez and run by the Cofradía de los Mártires de Astorga, the Confraternity of the Martyrs of Astorga. The hospital is gone but documented in 15th- and 16th-century records. The parish church is dedicated to San Verísimo, a 4th-century Portuguese-born Christian martyr from Lisbon whose relics were brought to Santiago de Compostela in the 15th century and rest at the Monastery of the Nuns of Santiago there to this day. The original 16th-century altarpiece from the parish church is preserved in the Museo de los Caminos in Astorga's Gaudí Palacio Episcopal.

The Ermita del Ecce Homo, set beside the road on the way out of town, dates from the 16th century and was originally dedicated to Saint Peter. Its name and dedication changed after a miracle traditionally said to have taken place at the well beside the chapel, where a pilgrim woman's young son fell in and was saved when she prayed to the Ecce Homo and the water rose to lift him out. The original image was destroyed during the Peninsular War in the early 19th century; the current Ecce Homo dates from the 19th century. Valdeviejas is also known across La Maragatería for its Pico Pardal chickpea, used in the regional cocido maragato. The first Sunday of May, the village brings the image of the Ecce Homo in procession to the parish church.

Services in Valdeviejas are limited. There is a bar-restaurant. There is no shop, no pharmacy, and no ATM, since the village sits in the immediate orbit of Astorga, which has all of those a short walk back. The Albergue de Peregrinos Ecce Homo, run by the Junta Vecinal, opened in 2010 but its current operating status should be verified locally before relying on it.