Astorga

Unfortunately we had to leave the Casa rural guest house we stayed in last night right after breakfast. Below is a picture of us and the rest of the guests having breakfast together.  If you ever find yourself in Villavante, Spain make reservations to stay at Molino Galochas.  We fell in love with the place and the innkeeper's are very gracious. We found out that it's a renovated mill, part of it built right over the river.  It makes sense to me now as they probably used the flowing river water to move the grinding wheels in the mill.  We told the owner if they ever wanted to sell the place to give us a call.

When we left this morning at sunrise it was cold and fogging out for the first two hours and then the sun broke through and ended up being a fantastic weather wise the rest of the day. The first village we came to was Puente de Orbigo on the east side of the Rio Orbigo.  We then crossed the river on one of the longest and best preserved medieval bridges in Spain dating from the 13th century and built over and earlier Roman bridge.  As the story goes a famous jousting tournament took place here in the Holy Year 1434. A noble knight from Leon, Don Suero de Quinones, scorned by a beautiful lady, threw down the gauntlet to any knight who dared to pass as he undertook to defend the bridge (and presumably his honour) against all comers.  Knights from all over Europe took up the challenge. Don Suero successfully defended the bridge for a month until the required 300 lances had been broken.  Together with his trusted comrades he then proceeded to Santiago to offer thanks for his freedom from the bonds of love and for his honour, now restored!  Wow, and to think all we did was walk peacefully over that same bridge and thru the next village of Hospital de Orbigo with any problems! Below is a picture of the bridge about half way across.

For the most part the walk today was pretty pleasant; a little over 13 miles with rolling hills.  We did run into a lot of rocks on the path which can be taxing walking over and trying to dodge.  There was about a good two miles today where the knats were out in full force.  Lee kept trying to swat them away and I accidentally inhaled one. Oh the challenges of the trail...you never know what your going to run into next!  Below are several pictures of various pilgrim statues taken along the way today. I have yet to find a statue of a female pilgrim, but I know there's got to be one as there are just as many females on the trail (if not more) as males!

For the most part the Spainards are very nice. While walking through one of the villages today a woman gave us both a couple of apples that she had just picked. They wish us a good walk (Buen Camino) and smile at us a lot.

As we came over the last hill today there was a large stone cross on the side of the hill with the town of Astorga in the back ground. We hope you enjoy the pictures from today. Tomorrow we're off to Rabanal Del Camino and only 162.4 miles to Santiago!

Villar de Mazarife - Villavante

We left Leon this morning.  We really enjoyed the part of the city within the old walls.  There were hardly any cars, just people walking and talking.  It was the quite part of the city considering the congestion surrounding it.  We headed for the Plaza San Marcos and the ancient monastery dedicated to St. Mark (Marcos in Spanish). The first few pictures below are taken out front of the monastery.  It was built in the 12th century and became the headquarters of the Knights of the Order of Santiago which was formed to protect the pilgrim way.  Below is also also a statue of a medieval and a couple of modern day pilgrims sitting at the base of a stone cross, admiring the stately surroundings while resting their weary feet.

Leaving Leon we crossed the Rio Bernesga on a 16th century stone bridge and headed through the outskirts of town.  The first town we got to after Leon was La Virgen del Camino.  As the story goes, a shepherd, in the early 16th century, saw a vison of the Virgin who told him to throw a stone and then build a church on the spot where it landed.  The town became famous on account of miracles performed here.  We continued on and walked through a couple other small villages before stopping in Chozas de Abajo for lunch.  Sandwiches here are called Bodillos and they are usually a big piece of Frenchbread with sliced cheese and ham on it and that's it.  We usually have a small jar of mayonnaise in our backpack to add to it and we ask for tomato to be added,  otherwise you need lots of water to help swallow it down!

Our final destination for today was the pilgrim friendly village of Villar de Mazarife.  The pictures of the church below are taken from the center of that village. Check out the steeple with the 3 stork nests!  The pilgrim statue I took a picture of was in the church courtyard.

Tonight we are staying in a lovely rural quest house.  A creek actually runs under the home!  In the living area they have a clear glass window on the floor that you can look through and see the water flowing by...it's so cool!   The innkeeper's are making us dinner tonight and there is a fire going in the fireplace.  Lee just looked at me and said "I'm not leaving!"  We both would love to have a home like this...it's amazing.  Below are a couple of pictures of the home and it's surroundings.

I may have to pry Lee away, but tomorrow we head for Astorga.

We are liking Leon!

We left Mansilla de las Mulas shortly after sunrise this morning.  We had another beatiful day of weather and a comfortable easy day of walking; only 11.2 miles into the city of Leon.  We met with and visited with 3 other pilgrims that were staying in our small hotel last night: Karen from Virginia, Jack from Ireland and Kate from England.  It's fascinating to meet people from all over the world that come to walk this pilgrimage for their various reasons. Some we may see once and never again, some we will keep running into over and over again.

One thing interesting that we've been seeing lately are stork nests built in the highest location of the village which is usually the church steeple.  Pictured below is one we saw today.

We left the Palencia region of Spain the other day and entered the Leon region.  Leon is the capital and was once a Roman military garrison and base for its 12th Legion, hence the name Leon, from Legion.  We are staying tonight in a hotel just outside the walls of the old city.  There is every period and style of architecture here that you can imagine; Romanesque, Gothic and modern.  The building pictured below is called the Casa de Botines and was designed by Gaudi.  The Gothic Cathedral pictured below is the Pulchra Leonina and can be seen right out of our hotel window.

Since we didn't have that far to walk today we got into town in the early afternoon. After we finally found our hotel and checked in, we went out to a very nice restaurant in the center of town and spurlged on a nice meal.  Below are pictures of our desserts. We will be going out his evening again to explore the city and the shops after we rest a bit.  We could spend days exploring this city but tomorrow we will be on our way again.  My blisters are healing and we are feeling pretty strong considering how far we've come.  Today we started our 4th week of walking, and we have less than 200 miles to go! We are heading to Villar de Mazarife in the morning.

Our contact info

Several friends have contacted us and said they are having trouble leaving comments on our Blog.  If you are reading this Blog and you would like to send us a message or some encouraging words below are our email addresses:

Diana - diana.dressler@yahoo.com
Lee - cmdurandsd@yahoo.com

El Burgo Ranero

The weather was beautiful today, in the low 70's and party cloudy all day.  We left once again before sunrise, the skies were red over Terradillos de Los Templarios. See pic below.  The first half of the day was beautiful, rolling hills and several small villages to walk through.  The small village of a orations seemed deserted as we walked through and then right next to the old church was the cutest cafe we've come a crossed yet. There were flowers toppling out of their baskets on the front facet.  See pics below.  The instead was quaint and had interesting artwork hung on the walls.  I could picture myself running a business someday...who knows maybe in my retirement?

Another interesting thing about this small village were some homes we found built right into the hillside.  There were sky lights and smoke stacks coming out the top.  We were wondering if they were built like this to provide protection from the weather or from protection from war?  After stopping for tea and coffee we proceeded on...and on...and on.  18.6 miles to El Burgo Ranero.  We were spent and flopped on our beds, horizontal finally!  This evening I will be popping my blisters.  We were told to stick a needle in with thread on it and push it back out the other side, leaving the thread in to serve as a wick so that fluids can drain out.  I hate the thought of it but I need to do something to relieve the pressure.

Below are some pictures from our day, tomorrow we head for Mansilla de las Mulas.

We made it to Mansilla de las Mulas!

Another beautiful day, and we needed the shorter day (11.7 miles) to recover from the last two long days. The walk today was pretty boring as it was on a path along side a country road practically the whole way. There are trees alongside the path that provided shade. The problem with walking along side a road are the cars that come zipping by.  They seem to be going so fast when you're on foot walking.  Several taxi's drove by today and I was very tempted to flag one down, but I didn't.

There was no wind today so the bugs and flies from the farms were out in full force.  There are flies everywhere and for some reason the Spanish don't use fly swaters! I tried to take a nap in the room this afternoon with about four flies that kept buzzing around, landing on me a crawling around.  I couldn't sleep until I got under the blanket and covered myself up, head and all!

Many of the towns and villages we walk through and stay in seem deserted, especially between 3-6 when everyone is having their siesta.  Dinner most nights isn't served until 7:30, which more often than not is too late for us.  Today we bread, cheese, lunch meat and a tomatoe to make a sandwich a little earlier.