Day 22 - Ledigos to Sahagún

We enjoyed a full night's rest thanks to a 6pm dinner at the albergue and only a 17 km walk today. We drank a café con leche at 6:30am as the albergue bar opened and then departed with a Camino friend.

We stopped in Moratinos for another café at a bar built into the hillside like many of the bodegas, some of which are believed to be up to 500 years old.

Today's walk brought us into the province of León, but the city of León is still three days away.

At Santuario de la Virgen Peregrina we received our official halfway certificates. The approach to restoration/preservation there was interesting. They've preserved what they can but haven't tried to recreate everything. There's a lot of white-washed walls and ceilings and then patches of frescoes and original colors like an incomplete puzzle. Even faded and incomplete, it was quite astonishing.

The timing of restaurants and the lunch hours seems to vary from city to city, but we figured out this one goes from 2 to 4pm, which overlaps with siesta here from 2-5pm when all other stores close; in the bigger cities some of the stores remain open. Some cities have lunch before the siesta and some during; it always requires looking about as Google is only right about half the time about the hours food is served.

We enjoyed a great lunch at Casa Simón with raciones like braised leeks with cecina (dry-cured beef) and asparagus in a cream sauce. I'm also gaining an appreciation for good vermouth served over ice and not as a component of a cocktail.

Tonight there is a gathering of pilgrims at 5pm at the albergue, mass at 6:30, and then maybe we'll have dinner or tapas; they usually have a communal dinner where we were planning to get rid of the cookies, but not on Sundays. Instead, we'll bring them to the 5pm social.

AllTrails

French Way: Carrión de los Condes - Calzadilla de la Cueza
https://api-v5.alltrails.com/explore/recording/…

Buen Camino!Read more