Day 21: To Bercianos del Real Camino

This morning I left before 7am and the sun was just up. It was a beautiful time to walk. After around 4K I arrived at Moratinos for a much-needed coffee break. After enjoying my coffee and pastry, I continued to a (fairly) major town on today’s hike, Sahagùn. Shortly before I entered the town, I passed over a medieval bridge and then through a monument that signifies the theoretical 1/2 point from St Jean Pied de Port France to Santiago de Compostela Spain. (You walk between two statues that mark the official 1/2 point.) That is of course if you walked directly from SJPDP to Santiago or about 400K of the 800K total.) Of course, I’ve been walking around the towns, having lunch, looking for bathrooms etc, so as of lunchtime today I have walked 321 miles or 517 kilometers since leaving SJPDP.
Entering Sahagún you pass another great pilgrim mural and then a big gate “The Arch of San Benito” that was originally the entrance to a church but is now an entrance to the city.
I went ahead and had lunch while in Sahagùn. I joined a nice French guy that I had seen several times on the Camino (Johan) for lunch. He started his Camino in a Le Puy France. It’s a gateway to the Camino that is about 750 kilometers before St Jean. So really where I started (Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port) was actually his 1/2-way point. I thought my 800k trek was a lot. Just goes to show, it’s all relative…Wow!
After leaving Sahagún I continued my hike for a couple more hours to my stop for the evening; Bercianos del Real Camino. I’ve been walking with some of my Camino family from the US (Terry, his granddaughter Emma, and her friend Jack) off and on the past few days. It happens we are staying in the same Albergue this evening. We were all on our phones this evening looking for beds for tomorrow and I found a very reasonable four-bedroom apartment for rent. So tomorrow we are all splitting it along with another pilgrim (Sue) we just met. It should be fun!Read more