We're doing it again, from Sahagun to Santiago
I read an article about Keith Richards (no relation to Wynette, as far as we know) that referred to him as the most elegantly wasted man in the world. I feel that way about some of the villages on the Camino. Here are some buildings in Valtuille de Arriba between Cacabelos and Villafranca. The village is not dead though and there are a number of newer and well kept up buildings right beside the ones on the photos. I guess it’s not worth the trouble and expense of tearing them down.
Lunch in Villafranca del Bierzo. A family group of 16 right next to us and another group of 10 by the window. Did we mention that we are trusting the vaccine?
This church is in Villafranca del Bierzo. A pilgrim who gets this far is getting pretty close to Santiago, about 200 km. If a pilgrim gets this far and is too sick or infirm to go any farther they can go through the door of pardon and get the same indulgence they would have gotten if they had made it to Santiago. (That may just be historical. We are not sure if it is still the case.)
There was no sign about this, a private residence I assume. Doesn’t seem like the best idea to have a stream running under your house.
We had lots of these photos on our first Camino but this was the first morning for a while on this Camino when the sun was out. FYI sunrise is about 7:40 this time of year in Spain.
We had a lovely walk on this last day before our pause, probably the best walk of this trip. Lots of sun. We took a long cut through an old village and through hectares (no acres here) of vineyards. This is the Bierzo area which has its own distinctive wines. Bierzo is a”designation”, kind of like a trademark, and like “champagne” in France.
The whole week before Easter is celebrated in Spain. We timed our trip to miss Easter since it makes traveling hard because everything is full. Each town makes a poster for it. Here are two that we have seen so far. We will post other ones as we find them.
We are taking a week off from the Camino! A few days ago the forecast was for day after day of unrelenting cold, cloudy, rainy weather. In a moment of weakness, we started looking at the forecast for Southern Spain (Málaga). It was about 10 degrees warmer there but still rainy. And a 9 hour train ride. We’ve always wanted to see A Coruña in northwest Spain on the Atlantic coast. Its highs were 5 degrees warmer than where we were on the Camino and its lows were 15 degrees warmer. And it was a 2.5 hour bus ride away. Hmmmm. We decided to head for A Coruña, hoping that in a week or so, weather on the Camino won’t be quite so uncomfortable. We reserved an Airbnb for a week in the historic district of A Coruña and caught the bus here yesterday morning (Monday). We spent yesterday getting settled into our charming B&B, going grocery shopping, and exploring the city a bit. Today we had a breakfast that couldn’t be beat in our kitchen, then went shopping for some warm fuzzies to wear around in our rather chilly, but still charming, Airbnb. And then had some yummy tapas for lunch.
Right now, the weather forecast is looking quite a bit better on the Camino than it was looking a few days ago. Weather here in this part of Spain changes so quickly and we’ve noticed that forecasts even for the same day end up being incorrect.
We are thinking we’ll probably return to where we left off (Villafranca del Bierzo) and start walking from there again in a week or so. But, who knows. We’ve even considered walking a different camino: the Camino Inglés which starts in A Coruña and ends in Santiago. Or, we might go back and walk some of the Ruta Cantábrica which we walked in 2019. Or maybe we’ll end up in Málaga!!
I have so much respect for the ancient engineers and workmen who designed and built these old machines using basic tools. A simple but effective labor saving device. The most complicated part is the screw, an inclined plane.
This made me think of the classic I Love Lucy episode where she is crushing grapes by stomping on them with her bare feet.