Author: Charlie

People put small change on the rough wall of this bar in Villafranca del Bierzo. Not attached, just carefully placed. A nice effect.

The smallest coin you normally see is 10 cents, except in grocery stores where you get copper (colored, certainly not real copper), that is, 1, 2, and 5 cent coins. They are a real pain so it felt great to leave some on the wall.

This was a very pleasant bar with a friendly server. They were open at 8 so we got coffee before our 8:40 bus to A Coruna. She wrapped up some Spanish tortilla (egg, onion and potato pie) for us to eat on the bus.

It’s not clear to me what game you play here. Anyone know? I saw some guys playing bocce a little farther down.

This was on a drawer in our place. It looks like it would be very useful for something but I don’t know exactly what. Anyone seen one of these before? I assume it’s not just that Uri Gellar stayed in this Airbnb.

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.