In Ponferrada, down in the valley

Before describing today I want to say a few more things about yesterday that I forgot to mention. So many little things happen, that I forget when writing...first, I have to say that when we left in the very cold morning, the frost everywhere on the grasses, ferns...white everywhere was quite amazing. But the one funny thing that Amr wants me to say is about a Spanish woman, a peregrino, middle-aged, who was just ahead of us when a cyclist came hooning along our track, which was rather narrow at the time...well she was furious (as we were too - they should use the road at those times) but she yelled at him, then delivered a tirade in very rapid Spanish to Amr about the rudeness of cyclists etc etc...glad it was Amr, but he only caught the gist of course...when she finally stopped and found we were Australian she still spoke rapidly in Spanish, but then asked for English lessons about phrases...”a wonderful day”, “a difficult Camino”...quite funny...but we struck her again this morning, and this time we were on the downhill climb to Molinaseca and she passed us and turned and held her finger to her lips and indicated how peaceful the silence was, just birds....then she said “las mujeres...” yak yak...meaning the women we had all passed were chatting constantly and being irritating to her! Thank goodness we were OK! People yakking a lot can disturb the peace, but that is all part of it...they are having a good time, and you are never near people for long. Also, must mention dinner last night. We went to the little restaurant near our place and had a great meal...just a peregrino menu, but for the meat course Amr and I both had rabbit with almond sauce and it was delicious. Today in Ponferrada we saw a fish dish with almond sauce, so it must be the thing round here.

Anyway, to get to today - we left at about 8.10, and walked 16 kms to Ponferrada. We thought it would be fairly easy and not too long, but the first 8 kms to Molinaseca were quite demanding downhill...we had forgotten how long that was (and were very glad we hadn’t had to do it yesterday afternoon)...so we stopped for refreshment, and set off for the last 8 kms and also forgot how long and undulating that was - you can see the city, but have to walk a couple of hours to reach it....

We are now down in the Bierzo valley, and the climate has changed drastically! It is HOT again...we found our very nice modern hotel, showered and went out to explore a bit, but after a bite to keep us going till dinner (again chiperones a la plancha!) we have retired back to our room to escape the afternoon heat! And it will only cool off to about 12° overnight...so no jackets tomorrow. Ponferrada is a lovely city...a Templar castle (which we toured last time), and great old town with narrow streets and squares. We will probably meet Brigitte, Janette and Jessica for dinner, as we are all staying at the same hotel, El Castillo.

Tomorrow’s walk is about 24 kms through the valley, and is the day last time when we saw the grape harvesting. Today on a hill we saw some picking going on, so who knows, maybe we’ll see it again. We will check the vines to see if they are still laden with grapes.Read more