At this Spanish cross, pilgrims leave their burdens behind

A closer look

Lugging your emotional baggage across northern Spain gets highly literal at this unassuming iron cross. For centuries, pilgrims have carried a single stone from their hometown—symbolizing their sins, regrets, or personal burdens—and dumped it onto the ever-growing mountain at this high-altitude checkpoint. It operates as a brilliant, entirely free psychological cleansing ritual that predates modern therapy by a millennium.