Had a leisurely "wakeup", listening to the heavy rain on the skylights and then nice light breakfast at albergue and hit the trail at 8am in full rain gear. It had stopped raining by then and simply threatened most of the morning but did not rain on us. There are "footprints" and "handprints" cast into the stones of the streets in front. I first noticed those of Miguel Indurain and then saw Emilio Estevez's. Martin Sheen's is apparently nearby as well.
Although our decision/dream of walking the Camino was already a reality, "The Way" did influence many Americans to walk the Camino. We will need to re-view the movie after we return to the USA. The path seemed much easier today and we stopped for "2nd breakfast" at a bar and continued to Villafranca Montes do Oca with an eye on continuing on over the range of big hills.
Sunflower field.
Note the "faces" that passing pilgrims have created on the sunflowers.
However, common sense prevailed and we decided to have a short day of 13km. Continuing would have been fairly strenuous and another 12km to a small monastery and we decided it made more sense to stop here and put in a long day tomorrow. We found an albergue that's attached to the rather nice Hotel San Anton Abad and settled in for a relaxing afternoon.
Albergue is attached & behind a nice hotel.
These bunkbeds above were 5 euro each and probably 20 bunks in one room. Pilgrims are somewhat notorious snorers!
We opted for the single beds, not exactly private since they are only separated from adjacent by a low partition but still a bit nicer -- 10 euros apiece. Unlike many places, the men and women do not share a bathroom here.
Not too much to do here other than relax and drink wine -- as if that's a bad thing! We just had two glasses of "Crianza" (aged red wine - Rioja in this case) and the woman also brought us each a small cup of garlic soup (sopa de ajo) - 3 euro for the 2 glasses of wine. We had a very nice "pilgrim's menu" dinner here in the hotel with three other pilgrims from the USA that we have seen often.
Location:Villafranca Montes de Oca, Spain
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