Astorga

The veggie hostel last night provided a really nice vegetable cous cous, and space to give my foot some tlc, which seems to have helped. Today started sunny with a lovely walk through beautiful countryside, where I walked for a while with a Hungarian spanish professor, and talked in Spanish which is unusual, English being the international language.
Half way along we came to the famous donativo Fiona has been talking about. There is every snack you could ever want, drinks and stuff and you just make a donation. I talked to an argentinian cyclist who has been camped out there for 10 days.
After a rest we came down in to Astorga, a town that exists because of the pilgrimage route in the middle ages but doesn't do much to welcome pilgrims. The crazy multistorey green iron bridge across a railway line that probably has 10 trains a day is just what you need after walking 15 miles.
The town seemed nice though and Gaudís episcopal palace was stunning. I was enjoying wandering around looking at the ceramics, when I suddenly realized they had chucked everyone else out and closed for lunch. My backpack was locked in the reception building and we had to ask to get a very grumpy person to let us back in to get it.
We are now 4km further on in a village albergue (hostel) which seems nice and a lot busier than last night.En savoir plus