Ally and I left Hontanas quite early, she in her bandaged feet and me feeling recovered from the long day yesterday. I was unsure how far she would make it today so I did not book any accommodations ahead. The first bit was a struggle as she tried to find something comfortable in her gait that would take pressure off the heels.
We made it to Castrojeriz for a break after almost 10km. I thought we could sit and rest and decide what to do. The towns in this section were, as one of our German pilgrims described, “not that adventurous”. But Castrojeriz was nice, the church was large, there were many services and albergues. We stopped at the church to get our pilgrim passport stamped but there was a fee to get in to the actual church.
After Castrojeriz there was a huge hill. It was super intimidating but we managed it fine. The worst part was the wind once we crested the alto. It was strong and somewhat defeating. It felt like every step we made was pushed back in our faces.
We kept on walking toward Fromista where we knew there was a train station. The plan now was to get there and take the train to León, this putting us on the back half of the route and enabling us to finish in Santiago in time before we have to go home. We stopped in Itero deVega to break, eat and refill the water.
We continued on, stopping briefly in another small village, Boadilla, before the final 6 km stretch to Fromista. Here we followed the aqueduct system right in to Fromista where the locks are that control the flows. We crossed the bridge over the locks and made our way to the train station. We had walked 33 km. Through dust and wind. After using a cafe wifi to book seats, we waited for the train. The train took us to Placencia then we switched to the León train. As we went through the countryside it was interesting to see the villages, which each one had a large church steeple in the center.
We made it to León and walked back towards the Camino and the cathedral. Tomorrow we will have a shorter day and spend some time in the city looking around.
Happy Mother’s Day to all my Mom’s out there today – but most importantly to mine who I miss dearly
Along the Way - Our Camino 