Day 11 Azofro to Grañon (March 28)

Another beautiful morning. We stopped at the restaurant Seville, had coffee, and bought a couple of bocadillos for the road. There were a lot of bicyclists there. They seemed to be in a biking club all wearing the same logo on their shirts. They loaded all their gear into a van before leaving. What a noisy bunch. Once we started walking, a couple of other cyclists passed us carrying the own gear. One fellow was towing a little ¨tiny¨ trailer. It was not a bad walk to Grañon. We planned a stop here because one of the forum members is supposed to be the hospitallero at the albergue in Granon. The walk was very noisy - construction and highway noise. I wish we could get to walk on something soft instead of pavement and rocks. We walked to Circuena and made a stopfor coffe and tortilla. Our second stop was in Santo Domingo de Claderas to check out the ¨Chicken church. Then continued. We stopped just outside of the city, just before the bridge and ate our lunch. There were many stork nests in the area. They were build on top of poles that seemed to have been placed there for just that purpose. I don´t know if we were tired or what, but the walk from Santo Domingo de la Calzada to Grañon was difficult for us. When we arrived at the albergue, Alberto welcomed us. it was his last day David would be replacing him. We stayed in the attic of the St John the Baptist church. It was probably the most rustic place we´ve slept in. Just mats on the floor. There were about 20 of us in the room. There were a few people we had met previously. Many German and Spanish pilgrims, one young man from South Africa and a young lady from Switzerland. We showered and did our laundry. I don´t understand why the washing machines here take soooooo long! I really miss real towels. We went to mass at 1900 in the chapel. Though the mass was in Spanish, the priest offered the pilgrims a special blessing in English and Spanish. It was very moving. After mass, the hospitalleros cooked supper tonight. Pretty good pasta - Alberto is Italian! delicious bread, asparagus, tomato salad. Our first pilgrim meal. One of the German pilgrims spoke to us about the German route. I have to investigate that more. One of the younger Germans played a few tunes on the piano. He was quite good. When we went to bed the wind was howling.