Dave's Travel Blog

Today’s walk from Molinaseca to Cacabelos should have been a fairly easy walk for us, but given the difficult walk yesterday combined with the fact that our hotel was across the street from Saturday night party central (little sleep), it turned out to be a bit of a struggle.

The walk was only 14 miles over flat terrain, but we all hit the wall around the 12 mile mark and barely made it into Cacabelos. Lucky for us, the town had a great place to hang out which offered one of the best meals we had on the trip. I highly recommend the Moncloa Restaurant and hotel. Very nice folks and great local food and wine. We are now in Bierzo wine region of Spain and the scenery today was some of the best since we walked through Rioja several weeks ago.

If you are interested in this kind of stuff, you can visit the link below:

https://www.simplyspanishwine.com/blogs/regions/bierzo

Another highlight of the trip was visiting the Knights Templar castle in Ponferrada. Lots of locals dressed in medieval garb.

We saw our Dutch friend Tony briefly on the trail and walked with him for a couple kilometers.

We also reached another milestone when we crossed the 200 km to go sign. So, less than 120 miles to go. Two (hopefully) easy days coming up. Things are looking good to finish on the 11th.

Pics from today:

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We weren’t quite sure what we we in store for when we started the hike this morning. We started late as I couldn’t find my hat and I think it is gone forever. I think it fell out of my pack walking to the hotel yesterday afternoon. The walk was uphill steadily for the 15km with some shorter areas of slight downhill. Even though the guide said that it was a moderate 25.6 km, it turned out to be the most physically demanding walk of the Camino so far. Worse even than the first day over the Pyrenees, which most people consider the most difficult day.

After seeing the snow capped mountains in the distance for the last five days, we finally caught up to them and passed them. We reached one of the most important milestones on the walk, the Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross), around the 8km mark and then hit a downhill stretch and then another uphill stretch to the 15km mark. That’s when things got very hard.

At the 15km, the elevation dropped quickly. We went from an elevation of 1500 meters to 500 meters over the last 10km. Most of it was on extremely rocky trails with high temperatures and not a cloud in the sky. Our legs and feet were on fire all of the way down. I was never so happy to stop walking. I will load up on Ibuprofen tonight and Volteran gel for my hip. Tomorrow is a relatively flat 20 km that will test my body’s recovery ability.

Some pics from today:

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We left Astorga this morning around 8:30am, which is later than we normally leave to start our morning walks. It was a relatively short walk to Rabanal (20k) and we didn’t want to get there before our 2pm check in. Today’s walk was very nice as we exited the urban environment and got back into the Spanish countryside as we get ready for the climb into the mountains tomorrow.

The hardest days on the Camino are the ones over 25k and the day after those long-distance walks. So, today’s walk was relatively short and flat, but I still felt worn down from yesterday’s walk. My hip was very painful this morning and I felt it through most of the walk today. Fingers are crossed that I will make it through the next 10 days.

We were surprised to see our 81 year old Dutch friend, Tony, when we entered Rabanal. We thought we would not see him again after the dinner we had with him 4 or 5 days ago.

Rabanal is a very nice small Spanish town. We had one of our best lunches on the Camino shortly after we arrived…a very good pasta carbonara.

Time for a shower and a short walk around town.

Update: we ran into our Dutch friend Tony as we were coming into Rabanal and took him out to dinner tonight. A very clear and mild night tonight. Perfect weather.

Just a few pics for today:

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Yesterday’s walk from Leon to Villadangos del Páramo was fairly easy and not so pretty. Most of the walk was through the Leon environs, with much of it through commercial office parks and along a main road. We stayed at, what essentially was, a truck stop motel just outside of Villadangos. The folks running it were nice and the room and the meal wasn’t bad. Villadangos was one of our least favorite towns as there was not much to do and it smelled very bad in places. We had the windows open in the hotel because it was so hot and I woke up at 2:30 am with some of the worst sewage smell coming into the room. I shut the windows quickly, but not quickly enough to stop the odor, which seemed to last for hours.

We were happy to get up early and start the journey to Astorga because it is known for being a much better and bigger town and it has a nice cathedral. We knew we were in for a bit of a rough walk because of the 30k distance and the 80+ degree weather. However, we overestimated our ability and this turned out to be the most difficult day of the Camino so far. It wasn’t the terrain which was rolling, but not hilly. Rather, it was the brutal heat and no escape from the sun the entire way. Also, there weren’t many places to rest and eat. We got a few things in a small shop, but we were determined to get to Astorga as quickly as possible.

We limped in to Astorga and spent way too much time trying to find the apartment we booked. After almost 30 minutes, we made it to the place, which turned out to be one of our best stays yet. Nice separate bedrooms, kitchen, washing machine, etc.

One thing of note today was the town of Hospital de Orbigo. The town appeared to be associated with some sort of medieval jousting fair as part of the city’s history. It also has a very long stone bridge and lots of banners throughout town that enhance its medieval ambience (see photo above).

We are hoping we can recover for tomorrow’s walk, which is only 20k…only 20k…ugh. We are getting close to heading into Spain’s northwestern mountains and out of the Castilla y Leon region and into Galicia.

Pics from the last two days:

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Leon Cathedral

Did a bit of sightseeing in Leon today as we visited the Museum of San Isidoro and the Leon Cathedral. Both were well worth the small admission charge. Leon Cathedral is French Gothic and has some of the oldest stained glass windows. The cathedral has 130 stained glass windows, many of them very large and it’s stunning no matter where you are in the cathedral. I have lots of pics today, so I’ll just stop here and let you peruse the gallery.

You could also read more about the windows here:

 https://www.fundacionjacobea.org/en/ways-of-santiago/the-cathedral-of-leon-and-its-stained-glass-windows/

The walking starts again tomorrow.

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