Villafranca

We started out early today knowing it would be a long one. We broke 20 miles which seemed totally out of reach a month ago, now it seems almost normal. We are still amazed at the beauty of watching the day awaken while walking through sleeping villages in this amazing country.

As we entered the town of Ponferrada we stopped across the street from the Templar Castle and enjoyed breakfast at a coffee joint that would be a perfect fit in Chico. As we headed out of the city, the Camino took us through the “good part of town” and we got to see some beautiful properties. This was a big change from the many farming villages we have been walking through.

About ten miles in, we stopped for lunch at a last ditch place on a very busy street, very tired and hot. The owner took us through the building to a patio in the back that was a total oasis of shade and quiet and served us a great shrimp and avocado salad. Today was a complete win for food!

From here we headed off for Villafranca to find ourselves walking in a region of rolling hills, covered with wine grapes, showing their fall colors. We had barely seen anyone we knew for the entire day so it was a treat to run into Sara and Andrew in the last town before Villafranca. It was sad to leave them and head off to the next town.

Our plan was to eat in Villafranca's city center before heading to our hostel and the surprises kept coming. We ran into Sherry and Bryan, from Georgia, who we had not seen since León. We thought they were a day ahead, so it was fun to see them and have dinner together. During dinner, thunder started booming and the sky opened in a downpour! So much for getting to our place dry. Peg was wishing we had left earlier as we were going to get soaked walking the 1 kilometer to our place. Just then I got a text out of the blue from the hostel saying it was raining really hard and asking if we wanted them to come get us. We were going to arrive at our destination dry after all! The Camino provides!
It was a good day.

Buen Camino Czytaj więcej