Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Day 25 Villar de Mazarife to Astorga (April 12)

Good Lord! Great weather again! We left the albergue last again. We immediately ran into Becky and walked the entire day with her - it was great! The walk was actually long and hard today, but we did get back into some hilly areas. There were lots of stones on the path. Hard walking. But lots of beauty as well. More storks nests and wildflowers. We even saw some livestock today - cows and pigs. We saw huge piles of celery root (celeriac) waiting to get picked up and distributed to market. We thought we´d only make it to Santibanez today. A ¨short¨ 12 mile walk. No way did we think we could make it all the way to Astorga, but we did. When we arrived in Santibanez we felt good and thought we could make it to the town just before Astorga. But, 4 km out of Astorga we came across a fellow (Bruno) with a fruit-drink stand and he spoke pretty good English and he told us it was an easy walk from there into Astorga, so off we went. He also recommended we should stay at the San Javier Albergue, which we did after checking out the municipal and not feeling too good about the place. San Javier was wonderful. There were two hospitaleros; Maya Louisa and Paco. Paco took care of those people with foot problems. Perhaps not as professional in the foot department as Laura was in Mansilla, but still a very caring person. The showers were nice, the bunks were nice, sufficient toilets and only 8 euros. A very dapper local man wearing an Alpine type hat herded several of us into the convent for mass. The nuns sang and the priest asked the pilgrims to carry the prayers of the sisters to Santiago. We had a great meal at the Hotel Gaudi. The Albergue gave us a coupon and for 11.50 euro we got ensalata mista, a whole baked fish and for dessert arroz con leche. Vino and bread too of course. A perfect end to a hard day. Before dinner Cullen, Becky and I sat at the bar and had sol y sombras. The bartender didn´t know how to make it so Cullen instructed her. They were very generous portions.

I feel like the weather has changed temps really dipped when the sun went down.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like you guys had an absolutely perfect Camino day! :-)

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  2. Oh we loved the Hotel Gaudi so much we stayed there and got a room overlooking the Archbishops palace-architectural history from ones bunk! By the way Astorga is 'Cake central' and we got the best macaroons in the whole wide world there...this is no idle boast I've tasted Ladure macaroons in Paris but Astorga had them beat.

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