We are in Astorga today at the Hotel Gaudi, across the street from the Bishop’s Palace, one of three Gaudi buildings outside of Barcelona. It appears the bishop got booted because walking in I saw a sign for the Gaudi Palace.
From the front
We toured it the last time we were here and might go again tomorrow.
From the wall
I wanted to say a few more things about Gaudi after seeing the museum in Leon. I had thought of Gaudi mainly as an artist who built building modeled on organic forms, but he was a gifted architect as well. Leon is colder than Barcelona and has problematic soil and lots of rain. He designed a new kind of foundation method for the Leon building, different from what was done before in Leon. The local architects didn’t think it would work and spread tales about how dangerous the building would be. But it did work and was also used in a later Gaudi building in Barcelona. He designed a ventilation system for the building to make it comfortable in summer and winter. He slanted the roof so the snow would fall off and other parts of the building so the snow would stay and give the building a frosted winter palace look. He designed drainage systems so the rain would not run down the side of the building including failsafes if they got blocked. He also designed furniture for the building, Quite the all-around guy.
Wynette has been amazing this trip with her Spanish. She will be the first to tell you how bad it is and how much she misses, especially when people talk fast, which they usually do. That is all true and she would not qualify as fluent but she calls and makes reservations and we have a place to stay. She has lengthy conversations with people and she learns lots of things about their lives. And sometimes we get hugs at the end, how great is that?
This all is making me think I need to spend at least some time learning some Spanish. I’ll never match Wynette who has been working on it for years but I can do a little.
Selfie with the owner of hostel where we stayed last night, Albergue Hostel Casa de los Hidalgos (highly recommended)
Reading the previous post I started wondering why we went early and thought about it. Since Wynette speaks pretty good Spanish she is able to talk to local people who only speak Spanish, which is most of them. We are usually the only people staying in the places we stay so we get the full attention of the people running the place. Wynette talked about her long conversations with Anabel in Villar de Mazarife. Anabel gave us a big hug at the end and Benedito gave us a manly handshake (you know how we guys are). This morning at breakfast she had a long friendly conversation with our hospitalier (?) ending with photos all around. People in restaurants have plenty of time to chat and ask us about our walk and tell us about their lives.
Sometimes we get cold and some places are closed but I think it is worth it.
As Wynette said we came early to avoid later crowds. We read a forum about all things Camino and everyone on the forum seems quite anxious to walk after a two-year hiatus. I expect there will be a huge number of pilgrims this year with the Holy Year and the post-covid surge. Hard to believe since now there are hardly any Pilgrims and many places are closed.
It is not like the Camino was free from crowds before the pandemic. The forum is filled with tales of people getting up at 5 am, walking some distance in the dark, and racing along in order to get a bed at the albergue for the night. We always thought this was sad. People did not stop and look at things. In a way this made sense because, for most pilgrims, the Camino is about doing the walking and socializing with other pilgrims.
Of course, the Camino will not be the only busy place this summer. I expect all the tourist sights will be packed and most are booked up for the entire summer.
Happy to get a room here (San Antonio de Padua) even though the heater stayed cold
We chose to come in early March for two reasons:
(1) To beat the rush. We expect the Camino to get crowded with pilgrims, perhaps as early as April. This is because of the pent-up demand of people not being able to come because of covid the past two years. Also this is a holy year on the Camino. The definition of a holy year is a year that St. James’ (Santiago’s) birthday falls on a Sunday. Actually, last year was the “real” holy year but, as Charlie says, it’s up to the pope to determine what is a holy year and he made this year a holy year since last year was pretty much a bust because of covid. The number of pilgrims goes way up in holy years. (Double or more.)
(2) The other reason we chose to go early was because we decided we’d like to get home before holy week, the week leading up to Easter. It’s even harder to find places to stay and eat that week. (We found that out the hard way in 2019.)
Now we are finding out the downside of coming so early.
(1) It’s been quite cold. Every morning we wake up to freezing temperatures. Actually it was something like 34 this morning, the warmest morning we’ve had. But it was also the grayest/drizzliest day. Even in the afternoon, it’s so cold and breezy in the shady tunnel-like streets of the little towns that we have very little inclination to stroll around and explore.
(2) We’re meeting very few other pilgrims. There’s been only one that we actually had a (brief) conversation with so far. He was from France. We met some bicyclists this afternoon but we were all freezing and rushing to get indoors and out of the drizzle and wind. Most of the places we’ve stayed had few other guests and as far as we could tell, no other pilgrims.
(3) Because of the scarcity of pilgrims, many place aren’t even open. We’ve been amazed to call for a reservation to places that looked like a wonderful place to stay to find they are closed. We are starting to dread hearing the word “cerrado” (closed) as much as we used to dread hearing the word “completo” (full). It’s not just the hotels that are closed but many bars and restaurants.
We are in the small town (population a little over 1000) of Hospital de Órbigo. It is one of my favorite places on the Camino. There is a long beautiful bridge leading into the town. I copied this out of wikipedia: “In 1434, the Leonese knight Suero de Quiñones held a tournament in which he or one of his companions challenged all men of equal rank who wished to cross the bridge here to a jousting tournament, Suero holding this bridge in the name of unrequited love. By 1434 the skill of jousting was not a standard part of military training but the challenge was taken seriously. Since 1434 was a Jacobean Holy Year, the traffic upon the Road of St James was considerable. The tournament lasted from July 11 until 9 August and Don Suero claimed to have broken 300 lances by the end.”
The bridge does bring up images of knights and romance.
We loved our private room experience in an albergue last night, mainly because of the nice interaction with the hospitaleros, but one problem is that there was no heat in our room and it suuuure was hard to get out of bed this morning. Close to freezing outside and dark and gray and drizzly. We had booked another private room in an Albergue tonight here in Hospital so we were nervous but, luckily, this room is heated and also it’s charming and sunny (even with gray skies outside). Well, it could be warmer but we are huddled next to the heater sitting at a table blogging (Wynette) and reading our news feeds (Charlie). Not too bad.
We walked 10.3 miles today. It was quite cold and drizzly and breezy (talk about wind chill) . We sure were glad to get here. Not exactly fun walking even though we passed through 2 charming towns and saw lots of storks. We had to walk 6 miles before we got to our first coffee stop. Whew, it was a relief to find them open. EVERYTHING else in that town was closed. Very few bars, etc. open here in Hospital either. But we did find one open bar/restaurant and had an excellent lunch. Charlie suggested while we were eating that, so far, we’ve been having better food on this Camino than ever and I think he’s right. I guess possibly it helps that we look at our phone for places that get the best Google reviews and choose one of those places. But we didn’t have many choices for lunch in Hospital today.
We’ve been eating a late lunch (around 3:00) and not eating dinner. They give you so much to eat we wouldn’t have room for dinner. The things we chose from today’s pilgrims menu (10 euros) : Charlie: trout soup, ham with red peppers, cheese cake. Wynette: mixed salad, garbanzo bean/shrimp soup, cheese cake. We share everything actually. Everything was incredible. Especially the two soups. We couldn’t believe how good they were. I can’t imagine how they manage to make them so flavorful. The woman who served us was also the cook. (I asked her if she was the cook and she said yes.) We found the same with the incredible lunch we had yesterday in a little bar in Villar de Mazarife. Both women were young. Man these Spanish women know how to cook. They proudly tell us things are “casera”, or “homemade” and there’s no question that that is true.
We walked 9 miles today to get here. I’m still working on toughening up my feet so was very happy to arrive. Last night we called the place we had chosen to stay (Tío Pepe’s) and they said they weren’t accepting any guests until March 15. So we called this place. They aren’t accepting pilgrims in the dorm (multi-bed) rooms but are accepting guests in the private rooms – – which is what we wanted anyway. We were thrilled to get a spot here. We stayed here 8 years ago. It wasn’t our first choice for this year because we couldn’t remember for sure if they provided sheets and towels – – and we did NOT bring those this year. But turns out they do provide them in the private rooms and we are very happy to be here.
The people who run the albergue are volunteers from Barcelona but they are here a lot and we remember them from when we were here 8 years ago. Very friendly people and the husband claims that he remembers us. That is so hard to believe. We just found some photos of us with them 8 years ago so maybe….
She told us that starting April 1, when they will officially open, all their private rooms (eight doubles, I think) are fully booked until October 30. Incredible. Tonight we are the only guests here.
They’ve been closed the past two years because of covid. She told us horror stories of what they’ve been through. She said the community here (Villar de Mazarife) has only about 450 residents but many many people died. The 58 year old man next door got sick on a Monday and died on Wednesday. In the hospital without his family. They are so grateful for “la vacuna” (vaccine) and are looking forward to a normal year.
This afternoon/evening, we are hanging out in the big dining room where, in normal times, they cook a big vegetarian paella for the pilgrims every night. There’s a warm fire.
I was going to call this post “Day in León,” but Charlie suggested the above. We spent the day in the very nice city of León. Our hotel is just around the corner from a building that Gaudí designed and built. (One of the 9 that exist in Spain, most of which are in Barcelona.) Last time we were here in León, we spotted the building right away but didn’t know it was a Gaudí right away. At the time, it was owned by a bank! Now it is a museum about Gaudí plus a small art gallery on the top floor. We spent a couple of hours there today. We’ll see another Gaudí work (a bishop’s palace) when we walk through Astorga in a few days.
We decided to eat Japanese food for lunch today. We’ve had lots of Spanish food already and will be eating it almost exclusively the next few weeks so decided to do this as a diversión. Enjoyed it.
Then we went to a self-serve laundry. It was very modern. There were a couple of rather small washing machines. I thought, “I guess sometimes people want to wash a really small load”, then I noticed the sign. (See photo below.) It translates to “Washing machine dedicated for the garments of your pets”. That was a new one for me!
Front of Hostal Albergueria del Camino (it only has private double rooms, I think)
Here is where we stayed last night and tonight. It cost 56 euros* (vs 45 euros at much plainer place night before last). It’s a beautiful charming place. And has an outstanding restaurant. Some of the best food we’ve ever eaten on any Camino. Everyone is so nice to us.
As you can see from these photos, we aren’t exactly roughing it.
*Well, they only charged us 50 euros when we checked out.
Our room We were quite pleased with the salad. The menu always includes wine. It was good but we usually like the water better.For dessert, the most amazing lemon cream and also natillas (a custard). Sitting room. We probably would have hung out here more, but would have to wear our masks. (It looks like Charlie forgot to put his on after our lunch in the dining room below.)
Yellow arrows lead the way. This was our first one on this Camino.
On our first Camino (in 2013!) we flew into Madrid, took a long bus ride to Pamplona, and finally a 45 minute bus ride to Roncesvalles, and stayed the night. The next three days we walked back to Pamplona, the start of the 45 minute bus ride. This gave me pause at the time and started me thinking about why people walk the Camino.
Our bus ride and walk back are completely normal for the Camino and almost all pilgrims do similar things, but if we then had taken the bus from Pamplona to Logrono, the next large city on the Camino, it would have been completely contrary to the spirit of the Camino and virtually no pilgrims would do that. Why is the direction so important? I think this is fairly obvious if you go through the reasons for walking the Camino in a previous post. Still, it makes you think.
Later in the same Camino we got to a town and called up a hotel about ten miles off the Camino. They sent a car to pick us up and take us there, we spent the night, and the next morning they gave us a ride back the exact spot we had been picked up. They provided this service to attract pilgrim business. Other than staying in a hotel, which has somewhat less pilgrim status than staying in an albergue, this was perfectly acceptable pilgrim behavior.
Yesterday we walked from Bercianos towards Mansilla de las Mulas for about seven miles, called a taxi to come and take us to Mansilla, stayed the night in a lovely hotel, and in the morning called a taxi to take us back to where we were picked up and walked the rest of the way into Mansilla, where we are staying tonight in the same lovely hotel.
From the outside this is kind of a crazy thing to do but I’m sure you see that it completely within the spirit of walking the Camino. Apart from the slight issue of staying in a hotel and spending the taxi money (32 euros) no one would fault us for doing this, and, in fact, this is common pilgrim behavior and recommended in Camino guidebooks as a way to handle long sections without services that many people cannot walk.
Despite this “taxi up and back” being “Camino community approved” doing it was somewhat unsatisfying. There is a pleasure in just walking the normal path that seemed somehow missing. It wasn’t that there is something wrong with it but I’m not sure it is the best way to get the Camino experience we want. We might do it again if we need to but we will try to avoid it.
Thinking about these issues was fun for me and a fun thing to do while walking. So there is another reason for walking the Camino, it encourages us to think about things that you would not have thought about if you had stayed home.
Full disclosure: Okay, we are wimpy walkers and only taxied back six miles instead of the nine to get to where we were picked up. So sue me.
