Rabé de la Calzadas

As planned, I slept in, luxuriated in having space to myself, then had a fancy, delish pastry for breakfast (see photo!) and sauntered out of town around 11:30, with a nice short walk planned - an easy 12.5 Km.

On the outskirts of Burgos I met up with Monica, a Canadian woman, and we ended up chatting away the entire way to my stop! It was a sharp contrast to my normal solo walking days and it certainly made the time fly. I enjoyed it, but also now look forward to quiet tomorrow. I can guarantee I won’t be seeing her again. That maniac is covering 40-50Km A DAY! Just now she’s “slowing” down to 40 for a couple days due to some swelling in her feet. She’s an ultramarathon runner, has done tons of them, in the Sahara, the Alps, the Mohave, all over. And was a smoker until about three years ago. Crazy!

My feet are happy for the slow day. They were yelling at me a lot last night. I’ve also been very remiss about stretching, which is not good so I worked on that today. A good rest stop!

Tomorrow I will pass by some beautiful ruins that have a tiny albergue tucked into them. It’s low odds, but if it’s open and there’s a bed I’m stopping there. It would be so cool!

If you look closely at the first fountain you’ll see that some of the figures are…risqué. There are others here and there, I have read, that are much more salacious. This apparently was common in the Middle Ages, on fountains and friezes outside of churches to emphasize the nature of “ the world” vs God’s kingdom. Hmm.

The other fountain is just plain funky. Maybe a local artist? It’s right outside my albergue.Read more