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Camino

August - September 2024
Our big retirement adventure part 1. We are walking the Camino de Santiago on the Frances (the french way) from St Jean Pied Deport, France to Santiago, Spain for a total of 879 km. Read more

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  • Spain
  • France
  • United States
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Backpacking, Bus, Car, Couple, Culture, Hiking, Sightseeing, Train, Wellness
  • 10.5kkilometers traveled
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  • 43footprints
  • 43days
  • 408photos
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  • Camino
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    Day 19 San Anton to Boadilla del Camino

    September 3, 2024 in Spain ⋅ 🌬 20 °C

    Had a good walk today, even with a big hill to climb. They say the Meseta is flat, again a lie. It was 12% grade up and 18% down, but a heck of a view. A couple of the pics show the mountain we went over. It reminded us of Table Rocks, on the top, it plateaued for a bit before the decent.

    The albergue was really nice, had a pool to soak hot, sore feet. The people working here were awesome, they work hard. Had a good pilgrims dinner of soup, beef stew or chicken and ice cream for dessert. Plus plenty of wine to drink.

    I'm so proud of Teresa. She was worried about the physical part of this adventure and slowing me down. As you can tell by the pics, she's always in front and is kicking my ass.    Read more

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    Day 20 - Boadilla to Villacazar de Sirga

    Sep 3–4, 2024 in Spain ⋅ 🌬 20 °C

    Today was our first day walking with major rain. We left the village seeing lightning and some loud thunder boomers. About 15 min into the walk, it started pouring. We donned our ponchos and kept moving, it rained like a mother. The girls we had been walking with, started a little later than us. They dodged back to the albergue to wait out the storm, hence they were the smart ones.

    Had some breakfast about 5k in to dry out our feet as we sent our packs ahead and didn't pack another set of docks in our day pack. It was a short day today only. 13 miles. The cathedral in Villacazar is nice, built in the 13th century by the Templars in order to protect pilgrims on their way to Santiago.

    Now we're sitting drinking Tinto deVeranos, eating chips, and relaxing. It's almost siesta time. I love this Spanish culture.    Read more

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    Day 21 - Villalcazar to Calzadilla

    September 4, 2024 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    Good weather today, cool morning, but warmed up by the time we made it to our albergue. More trees and corn fields dotted the landscape today. Got back into the grain fields as we reached Calzadilla.

    We take a morning selfie each day, and it's usually the one I post first. Some looked refreshed other times, not so much. I guess I snored a lot last night, so Teresa's a little tired in the picture this morning.

    If you were wondering, here is our routine for a day. Wake up at 6 am, do our morning duties (brush teeth, bathroom), gather our belongings, and move from the sleeping area to a common area to get ready. Doctor our feet or muscles, eat a banana, then hit the path between 0630 and 0700.

    We walk 3 - 6 km to the next village to get coffee, OJ, and some food... hopefully. We then keep walking, and around 10ish, we stop at a bar/cafe to get a cold drink and a snack (or eat something we bought the night before). At this time, we kick off the shoes to let the feet breathe.

    We start walking again. Usually, we'll stop to take in water, stretch, and/or take pictures. We keep walking until we reach our stop for the day, usually around 130 to 230pm. We check in, take a shower, wash clothes, hang them to dry, then get some lunch and a beer, or a tinto de verona.

    After lunch, we siesta until dinner, usually around 7pm. After dinner we will buy bananas or other snacks to pack for the morning. We then fill our water bottles, doctor our feet, or apply muscle cream again and take some ibuprofen. We blog and head to bed around 9ish.

    Then do it all over again in the morning. The life of a pilgrim.    Read more

  • Camino

    Day 22 Calzadilla to Sahagun

    September 5, 2024 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Tough day as my feet and legs never felt like they were in sync. We made it to Sahagun, which is the geological halfway point of the Spanish portion. Since we started France, it's actually more than halfway... yeah us!
    It's been 3 weeks of walking, and we're finally understanding what works well or not so well for us.

    We attended a pilgrims mass and blessing (we need all the help we can get), which was nice. Stayed an albergue that was run by the Marist faith in a private room with our own bathroom...for the cheapest fee so far. They had a donation breakfast this morning that was just right.    Read more

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    Day 24 - Sahagun to Reliegos

    September 6, 2024 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    What a difference a day makes. I made a few changes to my feet prep, and it seemed to work. We did our longest day yet, 19.5 miles, and we both felt good when we arrived.

    The last 8 miles were pretty lonely as we only saw about 5 bikers and 2 other pilgrims. The landscape is changing again, more irrigated fields, such as corn, sunflower, and some other leafy crop that we haven't figured out what it is. Even the grain fields are irrigated in this area. More trees and rivers as well. We are leaving the Meseta and entering more mountains in the next few days.

    Tomorrow, we will be in Leon after about 15 miles of walking.    Read more

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    Day 25 Reliegos to Leon

    September 7, 2024 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Started the day with a little bit of rain and a headwind. It was slow going for the first half of the day. We took a break for lunch, changed socks, and doctored feet. After this, things went smoother. The rain stopped, and we had good weather into Leon.

    Leon is the largest city so far, about 120,000 population. It was busy on a Saturday. We checked into our Hostal, showered, then explored the area.
    The cathedral was huge, we didn't tour this one but plenty of pictures of the outside. Had dinner with Lorreta, Denise, Hannah and Scott. We hadn't seen them for a few days. It was great seeing them    Read more

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    Day 26 - Leon to Villa de Mazarife

    Sep 8–12, 2024 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Left Leon with good weather in store for us today. No rain and fairly cool. Met a young woman from Brazil, Stephanie, who was just starting her camino as we were leaving the city. We walked with her out of the city and helped get her feet wet on camino things. We split off to a different route, and she continued on.

    We hadn't seen any of our camino friends for two days now, but we met several today coming out of Leon. One was a couple from Brazil, whom we met on the very first night in Borda.

    Good day so far...Getting a little siesta in before dinner at the albergue.    Read more

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    Day 27 - Mazarife to Hospital de Orbigo

    September 9, 2024 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    As you can tell, Teresa is much better at spelling the names of the towns than I am. I'm just going with the flow.

    A short day today, only 10 miles, so we took our time at breakfast and lunch. We visited with our camino friend Denise and then went to our albergues for an easy afternoon.
    This is a cool little village. They have a medieval festival in June where they celebrate jousting. As you come into town, you cross a bridge and the jousting grounds. We found a great pharmacy that is run by Maria. She was able to help us with our lotions and a brace that worked well on my achilles.

    Tomorrow is another shorter day to Astorga, where we're going to take another rest day before some mountain stages return.    Read more

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    Day 28 - Hospital de Orbego to Astorga

    September 10, 2024 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    Today was a good day for me. We received some help from Maria at the farmicia in Hospital last night. Today, I had the first pain-free walk in about 3 weeks, which was amazing.

    We had several surprises today that made the day memorable. One was getting a stamp and treat from an elderly man in the morning. No cafés were open, so we had no breakfast or coffee to start the day. Seeing this man was good for us since he had food and drinks, all for a donation. The other one was at about the 12 km we came upon a oasis with food and drinks, all for a donation also. Both of these are "the camino will provide" moments. The oasis had fresh fruits, cheese, toast, cookies, chips, juice, coffee, and water. You could also sleep there if needed, open 24 hours a day, again all donation based. David was the man manning the oasis so we took a picture with him. We gave our donation and headed into Astorga.

    Once in Astorga we had a nice lunch, visited the chocolate museum, and then checked into our hotel for our rest day. Got cleaned up, had a couple of drinks and dinner with Denise. It was a great day.    Read more

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    Day 29 - Astorga

    September 11, 2024 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    We took a rest day today and spent the day exploring Astorga. This is a nice city with enough shops, bars, cafes, and sights to keep you busy, but not be overwhelmed with people.

    We visited the Gaudi palace and Astorga cathedral today. Again, the architecture is amazing. The palace is one of the few that Gaudi designed and built outside of Catalonia. After touring the town we spent an hour in the hotel spa enjoying a jacuzzi, sauna, foot soak, and a warm nap on the Turkish chair.

    Tomorrow we start walking again. We're 4 weeks into the walk, with 16 more days to go...    Read more

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