Molino Galoches near Villavente

A nice little meson rural. The stream passes directly under the main house with windows in the floor to watch the stream. Good start. Tossed and turned all night, little to no sleep, but got up early and got mostly set. Quick in line for breakfast to beat the large crowd of older touristas. The front desk called Hector for me and got me to La Virgen in good order by 9:00 am. This is the last of the maseta (vast undulating, seemingly never ending wheat, barley and rape). I skipped the section in Leon because it is heavy industry and not very pleasant. Took the long detour through Mazarife where I had lunch at Meson Tio Pepe and the senora was nice enough to figure out that I needed to call Molina Galochas for a ride. My trip plan was for Mazarife, but Molina is 9 more km, a stretch for the first day at 23 km. Might just hit the road late out of Molina for a short 4 km hop to Hospital de Orbigio, my next stop. Overall easy day, very flat to pretty quick pace. I lucked out and the rain hit at midnight and no traces as of daylight. My “buddy” was Nicolas from San Francisco. A senior at Dartmouth and fluent Spanish speaker. The purple flowers I saw on the ride from Madrid were bumblebee lavender (grows wild), thistle and an allium. The ubiquitous poppy is indeed dark red and usually in fallow fields that have been cover cropped. Yellow way markers everywhere!Read more