Yesterday, we walked from Santervás de Campos to Sahagún, about 21km.
The plan was to take a taxi to Moratinos to visit Paddy and Rebekah and then return to Sahagún by foot, today. Calling for a taxi at 4pm when it’s actually siesta time is a bit of a problem, but with help from an acquaintance, a driver arrived in 10 minutes. I brought over about 40 Canadian pins and have been handing them out to those people who do us a kindness. Most of them are just doing their job, but they seem to treat us very kindly. I’ve only got 9 left. So, the taxi driver was a bit grumpy but during the 15 minute drive, I told her we were Canadian, etc and that we had just walk from Madrid. And then at our destination, Les paid her and I handed her a pin. She was overwhelmed and all smiles.
We had a lovely visit with Paddy and Rebekah, basically picking up from our last visit. Rebekah had to go to Santiago today and offered us a drive to Sahagún but we wanted the walk. It will take us two weeks to reach Santiago and it will take her 3-4 hours to drive.
So, as we walked, we met some other pilgrims! They slowed, we walked and talked and slowly we realized we were now on the Francés route and there would be more people. At Sahagún, we stopped at the Cluny albergue to look around and then went for coffee. We chose a place we’d been before, on a kind of raised triangle, easy to see from two streets. Sure enough, five more pilgrims stopped for coffee and to say hi. It will be an interesting two weeks.
We went our separate ways at 1pm and Les and I headed to the train station for León. There, we met a German who said he was cheating by taking the train but would pray for forgiveness and said he wasn’t very serious about it. A young Korean woman arrived, with both knees in great pain. She had decided to see León and then take the train to Santiago. Her sister lives in Germany so she had a base camp to go to while her knees healed.
It was as we got off the train that Les realized his hat was missing. So first on our list, after checking into the Hotel Paris and after I had spent 45 minutes at the spa using the sauna, was to go hat shopping. We had success and I also bought some very cushy sox.
By 6:30 we were getting a bit hungry so headed out to walk around and perhaps see if our favourite tapas bar was open. It wasn’t. In fact it looked like someone had died as it was soooo closed. We bought postcards, wandered around some of the cathedrals
and finally stopped for a glass of wine and a tapas. By this time it was after 8 and we then passed by our favourite. Choc-a-bloc!!! So in we went. Great food, people in and out and the room we are in at the hotel is across the street. Fortunately, if the windows are closed, we don’t hear a sound.
Above, our tapas and below, the view from our room.
Friday night in León and the place is hopping. Lovely to see all ages from 10-90, our visiting one another.
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