Tag Archives: Camino de Santiago

Camino Day 23 – Mansilla de las Mulas to León: after the Meseta, the rest

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Saturday 9 September 2023 – After all the exuberant shenanigans in Mansilla during yesterday evening, I expected the night to be a noisy one. In the end, the only thing disturbing utter quiet was the sound of thunder, so we had an undisturbed night. The forecast was for rain to fade away by 8am, leaving a warm day, so we timed our departure accordingly. The hotel’s rather patchy service level extended to breakfast which was only available over the road and only after 8am, so we quietly ate yoghurt and bananas that we’d bought, imbibed a mug of Twining’s finest Earl Grey and slipped out onto the Camino at 0730.

As we crossed the Roman bridge past the old city walls, the weather looked somewhat ominous,

and some pilgrims in front of us stopped to put on rain gear; I decided to put my confidence in Accuweather and refrained. Once again, we got some lovely light, courtesy of clouds and the rising sun

but basically the clouds cleared and we escaped any further rain, although we could see lightning ahead of us and thunder occasionally rolled around us.

The path ahead looked very similar to what we walked into Mansilla the previous day,

i.e. a track beside the road; I expected this to be our lot all the way for the 19 or so kilometres to León. There was some variation, though. After a few kilometres, informal signage promised us a bar off to the left, and so we headed that way into a village called Villamoros. There was a church

and, indeed, a bar – which was closed, despite a sign on the door saying it opened at 0730. Sighing, we moved on from Villa Morose and got back on the track.

Fortunately there was a bar open a couple of kilometres further on, so we stopped for a coffee and pastry to supplement what we’d eaten earlier. Shortly after moving on, we crossed a bridge

that makes life a bit easier for pilgrims, as originally, it seems that people were expected to ford the stream below. As we left this modern bridge we were confronted with a much older and more impressive one.

This is a Roman bridge which I think has as many as 20 arches, although it’s not possible to see them all; anyway, it’s an impressive piece of work, and further tribute to the quality of Roman construction.

The main Camino then carries on alongside the road for a few more kilometres, but the Google map we had courtesy of WalkTheCamino.com showed an alternative which was slightly longer but which took us away from the road.

The going was largely fine, although it required some careful puddle slaloming and the occasional well-judged leap. We were glad, though to get away from the trail of pilgrims on the main drag; although it couldn’t be called crowded, there were enough other people to encourage us to seek quiet and solitude – which we found with the exception of one other pilgrim, from Switzerland. He stopped to ask us what what was going on when he saw me apparently videoing an electricity pylon. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? This is what I was videoing.

Jane had spotted what was going on, and it was a pleasure to spend a few minutes watching the antics of these little chaps. I also spotted a bigger electricity pylon which I reckon has the face of a cat,

and we saw storks’ nests on other pylons, including one with both penthouse and mezzanine dwellings.

I reckon flying into the lower one of those requires a well-calculated approach path.

We eventually re-joined the main Camino track, which by this stage had also diverged from the road

and followed it past the village of Arcahueja, and past a rather nice pilgrims rest area

which featured a couple of water fountains, one of which had an amusing disclaimer on it.

We didn’t need any water anyway, and as it happens we were approaching a refreshment stop so moved on after I’d applied a bit of sun block, since the sun was now out and hot. The refreshment stop was in Valdelafuente, just a couple of kilometres further on, somewhere clearly beginning to be within the León industrial catchment area.

There were a couple of bars

and so we stopped for a coffee. On the left of the picture above, you can see the edge of a garden which featured some lovely colour

and the lady whose house it was was there, so Jane stopped to compliment her on the display, which I think she rather appreciated.

After our usual coffee/OJ/beer injection, the route was clearly nearing the city; we could soon see its sprawl

and, after a little more walking, could see the cathedral in the distance, too.

The rest of the walk in was, rather like Burgos, a bit of a fag, trawling through the suburbs which were pretty much like city outskirts everywhere, with the odd occasional sight worth a photo,

and then we were into the Old Town, which is very handsome and photogenic, and has some streets with a nice atmosphere.

I’m going to end the narrative here, because there’s so, so much to see in León that I would like to dedicate a separate entry for our sightseeing, and just say that we reached our rather nice hotel,

the Hotel Real Colegiata San Isidoro, which has some lovely corners

and were able to collapse, with a relieved sigh, into a comfortable, air-conditioned room with a couple of hours free to decompress before taking lunch. And a Very Nice Lunch it was, too – a Proper Lunch, indeed. We needed some exercise after it and so we went for a walk. Obviously. That walk, and all the things we saw today and will see tomorrow, will feature in an swpics Special Entry on Sightseeing In León.

I leave you with some stats. Our total kilometrage is now 476.9, a mileage of just over 296. Since Burgos, and the start of the Meseta, we have covered 193km – 120miles.

The Meseta, often talked about as the “mental” third of the Camino Francés, has not been dull, and we haven’t found it mentally challenging. It was very different from the first section – no really large towns, many small, very quiet villages, and a landscape dominated by large-scale agriculture – so very interesting to observe as we walked through it. But I have to say that it was wonderful to arrive at this luxurious accommodation, knowing we don’t have to walk tomorrow. A couple of places in the Meseta were nice to stay in – Emebed Posada in Castrojeriz and Casa El Cura in Calzadilla de los Hermanillos top the list – but the norm was for basic levels of service. That’s not a complaint or a criticism – I can’t imagine that there is a credible business model for a four-star hotel in the middle of the Meseta. It’s simply the way that things work there, and coming into big city levels of accommodation and service amplifies the contrast.

Weather permitting, we’ll be out and about in León tomorrow and I hope we’ll get some (more) great photos from the experience. Do check in and see how it all went, won’t you?

Camino Days 21 and 22 – Sahagún to Mansilla: Roman in the gloamin’

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Friday 8 September 2023 – Yesterday and today’s walks have largely been along another section of Roman road, so I have collapsed them into a single entry. Apart from anything else, it has given you a rest day, just like the one we have in plan for the day after tomorrow. I hope you’re grateful for that. If you’d like a summary of the route with some photos, you can see a Relive video that covers both days. It’ll take three minutes out of your life, but you might consider that a worthwhile investment of your time.

So: yesterday (Thursday 7th). The Hostal La Codorniz gave us a reasonably comfortable night, for all its other shortcomings. The room design was spectacularly poor. For example:

  • The only free electrical socket was placed just above and in the middle of the bed head – hardly the ideal place to plug in, say, a fan to keep the room cool during the night.
  • We had to move the room’s chair to be in front of the door to get it out of the way of any nocturnal peregrinations loo-wards.

I hope you get the picture. But we slept OK and there was a typical Meseta breakfast for us at 7am. It’s slightly odd that everywhere in Spain has provided yoghurt for breakfast except in the Meseta region. No matter – toast and/or croissant, in combination with Twining’s finest Earl Grey, courtesy of our diminishing stock, set us up for a short day’s walk. All we had to do was to get some 13km up the road to a(nother) small place called Calzadilla de los Hermanillos.

After leaving Sahagún on modern roads, our route took us on a right fork for the last two-thirds of the day’s walking; where the main route carries straight on, we join another Roman road – the longest stretch of Roman road in Spain, apparently.

First, though, as we walked out of the town, we passed (yet) another mural

and crossed a bridge

(see what I did there?) and passed yet another estimate of how much further we had to go; this one looks a little informal, if I’m honest.

We reached the fork in the road, with signs pointing us along our route, via Calzada del Coto,

supplemented by some extra (and informal) advertising of the facilities along the route, which constituted encouragement for us, as we’d planned a coffee stop in Calzada de Coto.

Very shortly we reached the village, which seemed nice enough,

but which was totally shut.

Bugger.

Nothing for it, then, but to carry on, I suppose, although it would have been possible to cut back to the other route if we’d wanted to.

However, the idea of walking a long stretch of Roman road rather than toiling alongside the bloody N-120 for even more kilometres was appealing. Also, that was the only way of reaching our accommodation for the night, as planned for us by WalkTheCamino.com.

This route dates from the time of the Emperor Trajan, who was Office i/c Roman Empire from 98 to 117. Obviously decadence had set in to the empire at that point as the builders couldn’t be bothered to make it straight, like Roman roads ought to be. Also, there was the small matter of a railway to cross,

which I think caused a bit of a deviation from the original.

The scenery for a large part of the walk was slightly odd,

with trees dotted at random intervals. We discovered (i.e Jane worked out) that these were Holm Oak trees

when their denisity increased enough for us to get near them.

The surface was level enough, but somewhat stony, so one had to pay some attention to where one put one’s feet. Frankly, it would have been easier if we could have ridden rather than walked; but there were no Trajan horses available, so Shanks’s pony it was.

The scenery, as I’ve said, was rather different from what we’d seen before in the Meseta – no wide open spaces featuring the duoculture of cereals and sunflowers. Frankly, you couldn’t have fitted it among the trees.

until we neared Calzadilla, at which point we got bloody sunflowers again

but interestingly with some kind of irrigation system installed, which we’d not noticed anywhere else for sunflowers before.

There were other crops, too – olives and almonds

maize and – christmas trees???

We arrived in Calzadilla

only about three hours after we set out, not too long after 11am. We walked through the town towards our hotel, noting that most of the buildings were, if not modern, then at least not old.

Albergue Municipal

with one or two exceptions.

The Ermita Nuestra Señora de los Dolores

When we reached our hotel, Casa El Cura,

we realised that it, like most of the village, was shut. Check-in was 1400, giving us some three hours to fill, which made us feel a little bit grumpy. We wandered around looking for a bar for some coffee, and ended up right back at our original entry point into the village, at the Albergue Via Trajana, which at least had an “Open” sign on it, even if there were no other signs of life. As it turned out, the lady managing the place was only too happy to provide coffee, OJ (Jane) and beer (me), so we passed a couple of hours there reading the papers and relaxing until it was time to get to the hotel and check in.

Casa El Cura is, we discovered, a delightful place. It was built in the 1980s by the grandparents of Gemma, the front of house, and is imbued with a sense of the (mainly agri)cultural history of the area, with historical photographs and implements used in the care and gathering of crops.

Mules drawing a threshing plate

Gemma gave us some great insights into the history of the place and why it wasn’t like so many other Spanish villages we’d passed, meaning with a selection of ancient, dilapidated and/or disued buildings among the other dwellings. It seems that many of the Calzadilla buildings had colapsed from disuse and newer buildings had replaced them, being holiday homes or houses for each of the children of a family. This contributes to the village’s air of being quite modern but still rather spookily empty. There’s a further illusion at play – there are normally plenty of pilgrims staying at the various accommodations, but one doesn’t see them out and about.
Alongside Gemma at the hotel, Leo does a great job in the kitchen; he produced a splendid late and Nice Lunch for us. Pleasantly and unexpectedly we were joined at the hotel by two German pilgrims, Petra and Tom, whom we had encountered several times before but thought would have been well ahead of us on their Camino, so it was nice to catch up with them. The timing of everything worked out well, allowing us to relax for the rest of the day to gather our energies for the morrow.

Ah, yes: the morrow. Let us move now to Friday September 8 2023.

The immmediate consequence of taking the Trajan road is that it leaves one without any refreshment stop until almost the next destination – Monsilla de las Mulas.

Bottom right is Sahagún, top left is Mansilla, blue dot is Calzadilla.

Our route was pretty much devoid of any pilgrim services (e.g. coffee bars) for over three-quarters of the distance to Mansilla. One option was to cut across, back to the main drag, where the going underfoot would be better and there would be refreshment stops available along the way. That we didn’t, but instead chose to press on through the stony-tracked, coffee-bar-less wilderness of the Trajan road, shows how much the Camino can play with the balance of one’s mind. We decided that taking the Roman road was the thing to do, so, after a sort of picnic breakfast kindly provided by Gemma, off we went,

As the sun rose, it gave us some lovely light as it shone through the clouds which had provided thunder, lightning and rain during the night, which we were extremely glad to have avoided as we walked.

You will have noticed, because you’re paying attention, aren’t you?, that the road we were on seemed rather well-tarmacked for a Roman effort. And so it was, but we were still on the route of the original road, and, after the “shall we, shan’t we?” decision point

we carried on the somewhat stony, but otherwise sound path that we’d followed to reach Calazada the day before. Because there had been a lot of rain, there was a certain amount of slalom necessary to get round the puddles, but otherwise it was fine; we were very glad to have taken this option, coffee bars or none.

That said, it bore a striking resemblance to the other roman roads we’d walked, in that was flat, level and, frankly, somewhat lacking variety. Excitement came in the form of things like the chicane that the devilish road builders had clearly create to spice up the chariot races they used, I’m sure, to run on this stetch of road;

resting places, both official

and unofficial;

enormous watering arrays for the maize crops;

a railway line;

and views of the mountains which, I guess, we will eventually have to cross.

It really is rather flat,

but not uninteresting, as i’ve said before. For the final stretch of the 17km that took us into civilisation we were joined by a Dutch chap, Pascal, who, once he’d caught us up, slowed his pace a little so we could walk and talk; this passed the time agreeably until we reached the village of Reliegos

where there were bodegas

and the chance of a much-needed rest and refreshment. We accidentally stumbled across the second bar in the town, which required us to cross some major roadworks to get into it

but this turned out to be a happy accident, as we were joined by Mike and Molly from Minnesota, pilgrims we’d talked and dined with a couple of days before, and they reported that the first bar was full when they’d reached it.

Refreshment duly imbibed, we headed on towards our destnation, Mansilla de las Mulas. On the way, we noticed some actual farm animals

which were the first we’d seen in Spain – the sheep, cows and horses we’d encountered at the start of the Camino were, of course, in France.

At this point we realised that the team at WalkTheCamino.com had done us a real favour by taking us along the Roman road. As well as the satisfaction of tramping along a chunk of history, they’d spared us from some thirty kilometres of walking beside a main road.

However, now that the sun was up and the day was getting hot, having the systematic shade of the plane trees which had been planted along the roadside track now made the remaining walk into Mansilla that much more pleasant.

Soon enough we were on the outskirts of Mansilla.

We walked though the remains of one of its old gates.

They really didn’t fuck about when they made these walls really quite stout.

En route to our hotel we passed a pilgrim’s cross

and a mural

and walked the streets

past one of the churches

through a somewhat better-preserved gate

to our hotel

which was closed. On the door was a telephone number to call to bring someone to do the check-in thing. This didn’t work and so we spent really quite an unacceptable amount of time waiting for someone to come. Jane went out to search, based on a tip from a hotel resident, and of course someone turned up as soon as Jane had gone off on her quest. It’s really annoying: which part of “answer your bloody phone!” do such organisations not understand?

Anyhoo…

We got into our room, which was actually quite pleasant, and relaxed for a bit – just long enough, it transpired, such that when we went out to get something to eat, all the restaurants were closed, even the ones that Google had promsed were open. We blundered about a bit searching for an eatery or a shop which could sell us something edible. All we discovered was a town square where exceedingly loud music was blaring out amid signs that Something Was Going To Happen

and we eventually found a slightly louche bar

where we got a couple of enormous g&ts, some croquettas and a good laugh at the cabaret of the lass runing the joint telling some dodgy character to sod off and calling the police when he didn’t. We also got into a pilgrim-type chat with an American lady called Joanne, which was fun; and we further had the sense to leave before it became a Rocky Road.

Heading back to the hotel the sense that Something Was Going On was heightened, and, in the shop where we bought some essentials (e.g. milk for the Earl Grey), we found out that the town was having a festival for the weekend, hence the loud music and other bizarre things that could be seen going on around the town.

We left these Young Things to their fun and games to head back to the hotel, where we were able to make a meal out of our purchases and relax for the rest of the day.

Until…

Fireworks. And a parade. Who knows what else, but I captured a bit of video to show you the spirit of the whole thing.

Stats: Over the past two days, Relive reckons that we’ve covered a further 38.4km, so we’re up to 451.6km, or nearly 281miles. Tomorrow sees us finish the crossing of the Meseta as we arrive (all being well) in León, some 19km away. Accuweather is warning of storms and rain overnight, but the hope is that these will clear away by the time we want to leave and hold off until we arrrive in León. Once there, we have a rest day – hurrah! – which might be somewhat beset by showers – boo! We hope that we’ll still be able to do some sightseeing there, but who can tell? Check back in, won’t you, to find out?

Camino Day 20 – Calzadilla to Sahagún: The road less gravelled

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Wednesday 6 September 2023 – Here I am, once again addressing myself to the critically important things in life. Yup. I’m blogging from the launderette. We noticed it on the way to a Nice Lunch and so, having stuffed myself, I’ve now stuffed the washing machine.

Today has been a good day, generally – including doing the washing.  As my brother knows, getting the washing done when one is away from home for an extended period preys on the mind – these things are important, you know – and so the chance to have clean knickers and socks going forward is as much a contribution to the quality of life as a nice walk.

Which we had, today. If you’re in a bit of a hurry, you can watch the Relive video instead of reading on. Your call.

Still here? Oh, good. OK, then…

Our eccentric, somewhat threadbare and slightly charming hostal in Calzadilla de la Cueza provided an eccentric, somewhat threadbare and slightly charming breakfast (toasted croissant, anyone?) which we supplemented from our stock of Twining’s finest Earl Grey, and then departed some 15 minutes before sunrise; the forecast was for a dry day and temperatures not too hot – upper 20s Centigrade – but a prompt start in the cool seemed a good idea.

By and large, the Camino Francés route is unambiguously signposted.  However, the onward journey towards our destination, Sahagún, some 22km away, had several options.  The company who have organised all our baggage transfers along the way, walkthecamino.com, have also provided us with a personalised Google Map, showing our route and our hotels.  The map for this area looks like this,

with the hotel we had just departed bottom right.  Jane had, as ever, done her homework and reckoned that although the most straightforward route was simply walking beside the road, an alternative route through the countryside seemed a more attractive proposition, provided that it wasn’t too unfriendly to a sandals-and-socks approach. So it proved; the official Camino signposts pointed people along the right fork, on the route beside the road; so we struck out on the left fork across country. And were very glad we did so, too.

At first, the path provided a scene that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an Autumnal walk in leafy Surrey

but soon returned to more familiar scenes for the area, meaning sunflowers, mainly.

Some of the sunflowers looked extremely dead and ready to harvest

and, given that there’s apparently a 90-120 day cycle from sowing to harvesting, I wonder whether we’ll see some harvesting action later in our walk, as we’d both like to see how it’s done.

We came across a handy stone map, which showed the various routes and reassured us that we weren’t off on a wild goose chase.

The landscape contrasted sharply with the flat, unvarying scenery that had accompanied yesterday’s walk. We had nice patterns in the harvested fields

and nice views as the path rose and dipped. We saw not a single soul (although we did see a deer).

Before long (well, about 7km) we saw our first coffee stop, in a village called Ledigos,

where, after the caffeine injection, we saw that the route bifurcated again.

We chose the principal path, as it seemed that the pilgrim’s path would simply continue alongside the road.  The morning light was lovely as we passed another dovecote

and we very soon reached the next village, Terradillos de los Templarios, at one stage a calling-in place for Knights Templar, but now lacking any of the historical buildings of those days. The only reminder now of those Good Old Days is a rather fine statue.

The significance of the place for us was that it’s recognised as the halfway point along the Camino Francés.  We’ve got a long way to go, but Look How Far We’ve Come!

We didn’t stop for a celebratory libation, but instead pressed on, as we still had some distance to cover and the day was warming up.

The various routes now combined and led us on through two more villages on our journey to Sahagún, and both were delightful, each in its own way. En route, we passed an unusual sight.

This is the first large-scale use of solar panels we’ve seen on our time in Spain so far, and we wonder why?  There’s so much sun, one would have thought it would be extremely cost-effective to set up solar farms all over. But no, apparently. Maybe just not yet?

We also passed the first evidence of farmers at work.

Bear with me on this; its relevance will become clearer later.

The first village we reached was Moratinos.  As we approached, it looked as if it had its own slag heap,

but as we got closer, we noticed what looked like chimneys sticking out of it.

A passing Spanish pilgrim explained that these were bodegas – cellars; there were several entrances around the mound, some in disrepair, but some in good shape.

The word “bodega” is firmly associated in my mind with wine; but there are no vines hereabouts.  In front of the mound, there was a sign which explained more. At one time there were vines around and these bodegas were used for the preparing and storing of wine – a perfect environment as, like a wine cellar in France, the temperature is unvarying. However, many owners moved away to work in the cities, and there are no longer many grapevines around. Apparently about three families in the village still make their own wine, but other bodegas are used for storage of food such as ham and cheese, or as party venues; or, sadly, are disused and hence dangerous to enter.

Just outside the bodegas is a refreshment stop,

 

but we decided to crack on, and turned the corner into a village square which was a delight.

Local ladies have crocheted or knitted many of these flags, but others have apparently been donated by women in Ireland, Portugal and the USA.

Outside the village there’s further evidence of the various versions of the total distance of the Camino, as these two signs were within a few metres of each other.

No matter – we’re over half way there and still enjoying every day.

En route to the next village, San Nicolás del Real Camino, we passed this charming sign.

This is something we’ve talked about with other pilgrims: the first bar in a village is the favourite to get the pilgrim business.  This chap was clearly taking pre-emptive steps to give his establishment a chance. The village appeared in a fold of the countryside

(and one of the houses had more bodegas outside it)

and so we deliberately passed by the first bar, outside which was this sign

and went to the second one.

Which was lovely.  We had coffee and juice (Jane) and beer (me – I needed the electrolytes) and the manager was very charming and gave us great service.

As we moved on, I realised that the countryside was gradually changing colour, from gold to brown

as more and more fields where the crop has been harvested are ploughed over.

We soon caught sight of Sahagún in the distance,

but still had a few kilometres to go to get to our hotel.  The path led past an Ermita, the Ermita de La Virgen del Puente

which had outside it a pair of statues.

Archibishop Bernard of Sédirac
Alfonso VI “El Bravo”

At about this point the day had become quite hot and we were walking in the sun, so the rest of the journey to our hotel was a bit of a test of patience.  I tried not simply to wish that I was there, but to be patient and keep walking, in the certain knowledge that I would get there. I did, but not before tripping over a lump of concrete and skinning my knee. Patience, hah!

We checked into our hotel, the Hostal La Codorniz (so nearly some Cava) and got into one room before they realised their mistake and ushered us into another room (larger, fortunately), which we again vacated soon after for a neighbouring room because of an ominous sound of dripping water coming from behind one of the walls.

Then we went for a walk. Obviously.

Actually, the idea was to go for a Nice Lunch, at a restaurant called El Arco, recommended by a Swedish friend of ours who walked the Camino last year, and who is partly responsible for us doing it this year.  When you reach the restaurant, you realise, if you look to your right, why it’s called El Arco.

We did, indeed, have a Nice Lunch, and then walked back to our hotel via some of the various sights in the town.

The arch belongs to the (now ruined) Benedictine Monasterio de Santa Cruz

and the route back led us past the Plaza Mayor,

other principal churches,

San Tirso
San Lorenzo
San Juan
Santisima Trinidad

as well as many murals.

It’s a bit whistle stop, but it was nice to see the extent and variety of buildings, architecture and artwork in the town.

Stats, then.  24.2km was recorded by Relive today.  It should have been a little less, but a small lapse of concentration led us off piste a short way.. However, 413.2km it is, just a smidge under 257 miles, and definitely over half way along.

Tomorrow sees us taking a shorter walk, about 13km to another Calzadilla, this one being of the de los Hermanillos variety. We’ll probably aim for an early start to get the best of the cool, even though temperatures forecast are not oppressively high – upper 20s again – and rain should not figure.

OK, I’ve done the washing now. time to close this entry off. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about today and will come back soon and read about tomorrow.