Villafranca rest day

I did as little as possible today. A nice breakfast, a shuffle over the bridge into town to visit the farmacia and the ATM, a bit of foot care, a nice lunch, an afternoon nap, a nice dinner and that was just about it.  Did get a chance to plan the next few days and psych myself up for the next phase. It has been lovely to stop for a bit.

Tomorrow O Cebriero a steep climb up to 1400 metres. I am going to take the alternative route out of Villafranca which is a bit longer and steeper but said to be prettier than the road route.

Villafranca

An unseasonably hot day today so I left early. Didn't sleep all that well, and had to push myself to keep moving. But an interesting day's  walk. Almost medieval scenes of people planting out seedlings, tending young vines, or just resting in the shade. Less of the broom plant that I am alergic to, so I breathed easier. Walking into Villafranca you pass the wonderful Puerte de Pardon. Pilgrims to ill to continue could achieve the same Santiago indulgences by walking through that door. Unfortunately, as with the last time I visited, it was locked. No pardon for me I guess. I was hot, tired and footsore by the time I hit Villafranca, so I am going to have a rest day tomorrow. Nearly 600 kilometres walked, 187 to go, which all being well should take about 8 more days.
But tomorrow sleep in till 7.15. In clean white sheets in a real bed. Whoohooo!

Ponferrada

I moved to smaller nicer albergue and as a consequence had a good night's sleep and was on the road by 7.  A beautiful walk in the early dawn up the mountain through masses of wildflowers, in particular a white broom, spectacular to look at but unfortunately it caused an alergic hay fever type reaction in me so I climbed while sneezing and coughing. The big highlight of the climb is the Cruz de Ferro. Traditionally each pilgrim adds a stone brought from home to the cairn, a gesture which symbolizes letting go of some aspect of one's past. That meaning has collided with the selfie generation appetite for having your own image recorded in iconic locations. To actually get onto the cairn today there was a long queue while perginas x, y and z posed, worked through all possible combinations of their group, to be replaced by the next lot who did exactly the same thing. By the time I got up there I am afraid I was burdened by some very uncharitable, unpilgrim like thoughts, and came away feeling rather worse, not better. Oh well.
The mountains are spectacular and the stone villages you pass through coming down very pretty. Looks like there is some rebuilding going on, rather than deterioration only. I stopped in a little bar a few kilometres outside Molinaseca. It felt like being in someone's home. Sitting on the terrace were three generations, granma, the senora running the show, and two teenage daughters,  plus a few generations of german shepherds and a beautiful blue eyed cat who sat on my knee while I ate my bocadillo.

I slogged on to Ponferrada through a very hot afternoon, feeling the heat from the road radiating up through my boots, checked in to the lovely municipal albergue, washed self and clothes, rehydrated with a few cervezas talking with some other peregrinos, including the lady paralyzed down one side who is completing the Camino with incredible patience and slowness.  Now to find some dinner.

Tomorrow Villafranca maybe. Tomorrow should pass the 200 kilometres to go mark.

Rabanal

After a bit of albergue rage last night - I told a guy to shut up  who was talking loudly when every one in the room was asleep or trying to sleep - this morning I took the road route out of Hospital del Orbigo. It is a bit shorter and the gradients kinder than the scenic route Anne and I took last time. If you ignore the traffic on the N 120 whizzing by some 30 metres off to the right, it was quite pretty, with fields of poppies and lavender, and lots of little birds chirping and flitting around. Be there no plot so narrow/ But may well employ each faculty of sense/ And keep the heart awake/ To beauty and to love. As Coleridge might have said.

I got to Astorga way too early to stop for the day so after an indigestible tortilla on the plaza
- just like last time - when will I learn? -   I kept on going. Lovely to be walking in the mountains again after the Meseta, with splendid views across to peaks with plenty of snow still on them and quaint stone villages. I swear the same old geezer was sitting on the same stone bench outside El Ganso as when we passed last time, rolling what was probably not the same fag. After a warm afternoon's slog, I wound up here in Rabanal.  It is such a pretty, laid back village and great to be here again. The church of Santa Maria in Rabanal, which is my favourite on the whole Camino  - I can say that with authority now - has deteriorated significantly since I was last here. There are ominous cracks in the arches that support the central body of the chuch, and a truly nasty bulge in the side wall. If it was in Australia, I think it would be closed as a safety hazard. I sat in there for a while but a strong instinct for personal survival told me to leave. I don't think i will be getting on down there for mass tonight.

I am staying in an albergue that redefines personal space and breaks all records for the number of bunks squeezed into a given space. Also the lowest number of toilets for the greatest number of people. The worst so far but it is a bed and I did not have to walk on to the next village. I found a friendly bar, on the road into town,  serving food early bless them, so all is well with the world at the moment.  I seem to have obsessive compulsive walking disorder at the moment. I enjoy the walking most of all, so I seem to be putting in some long days. I bumped into one of the people I met on the very first day, up over the Pyrenees. I asked how she was going. Her response: "I have an empty head and a happy heart". I was hoping for something like that but I can't really say I've got there yet.  I'm not sure she has either, to be honest, but it is a good aspiration for the rest of the walk.

Tomorrow, maybe Ponferrada, or Molineseca if I can persuade myself to stop walking.

Hospital de Orbigo

I was thinking of a rest day in Leon, but after a refreshing night's sleep and a sleep in till 7.30 I woke up feeling that I should move on. Some sort of migratory instinct is telling me to join the herd moving Westwards, and like a caribou, off I go. The road out of Leon is about as inspiring as the road in. At least it is clearly marked. My walk was much improved by a nice man in a van selling crepes. Great Spanish entrepreneurship, he was set up at the top of a long hill, and just out of sight of the row of bars just round the corner. Last time we were here, we walked the scenic option. This time I chose the road route, mostly because that is the one on my gps. Putting a large busy road through a village doesn't do a lot for it, but there were still lots of lovely sights along the way - fields of lavender, rosemary and wilds flowers, church towers with multiple stork nests, each with some baby stork heads peeking over the top of the nests, and each nest watched over by an attentive parent stork.

As the day got hotter the sights got stranger. I passed two seemingly identical spanish gents each impeccably turned out with dark suit, hat and walking stick. But strangest was the tall grey haired skinny gringo in shorts and tshirt I passed kilometres from anywhere,  heading in the wrong direction, carrying plastic shopping bags filled with what looked like orange juice bottles, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Clint Eastwood. What on earth was he doing out there going that way? Where had he come from? I had to look around after he had passed to make sure I had really seen him. It was hot out there today.

But now I have reached the nice little town of Hospital de Orbigo with its wonderful bridge, and I am kicking back watching the local families enjoying their Sunday, and the occasional hot tired looking peregrinos straggle in.

Nearly across the Meseta and feeling pretty good. My ankle as resumed its normal proportions and has stopped hurting, in good time for the next big climb up past Rabanal. Good weather forecasts for the next few days as well. Tomorrow I will get to Astorga then work out what next.

Leon

A reasonably easy 24 ks into Leon. Great breakfast at a funny bar near Puente Villarente - strauss waltzes playing and the waiter with swept back hairdo dancing as he made the coffees. Best tortela ever sitting in the sun. The outskirts of Leon are a bit discouraging not helped by overflowing rubbish bins ripening in the warm sun. Either a garbage strike or they need to lift their game on the collection side.

Leon is even livelier than I remember. Beautifully dressed children, and the populace as a whole puts a lot of energy and attention into presentation. The peregrinos stand out like sore thumbs in the flood of elegantly dressed people.

I am feeling a bit restless and discover I can only stay one night in the hostal i am staying in. But at least for tonight I have a room to myself, and my own bathroom. Bliss!

Tomorrow I will head on then, perhaps to Villar de Mazarife.

Reliegos

Refreshed by a delicious dinner andj a great sleep, walked about 38 k today to get to Reliegos, a little pueblo whose main claim to fame is that it was hit by a 17.3 kilo meteor in 1947.  On the basis that meteors seldom hit twice in the same place I should be able to sleep safe from that at least.

The walk took us past a lovely little church out in the middle of fields, the Ermita Virgen del Puente, and through the city of Sahagun, where a lovely elderly spanish man led me through the little streets to an ATM, sensing correctly that my spanish was too limited to grasp the necessary directions. A pretty town with some impressive ruins. The walk was flat but with impressive views across the plain to a ring of snow capped mountains stretching from the north to the West. Could they be the Montes de Leon I wonder?

Coming down the valley into the village Leon, and the spire of its wonderful Cathedral, was visible over on the plain to the West. About 24 ks into Leon tomorrow. As I've caught up a couple of days I might have a rest day in Leon, maybe even spring for a hotel so I can sleep in. Will see.