Kiwi in Crocs: 18. Hospital de Orbigo to Molinaseca 25/7/12

After breakfast, with the pilgrims at the albergue, I went and packed while chatting to Jeff on Skype. It was perfect as everyone had left straight after breakfast so I had the dorm to myself. I left about 9am as the cleaner was waiting to get in to clean.

Breakfast at the albergue

I followed the Camino trail on a dirt road and met up with two people from Brazil. They made me laugh as they were walking along smoking so I lit up a cig as well and cycled beside them chatting for a while. I thought it may have been a father with his daughter – but she was only two years younger than him and they had 3 kids - 29, 27 and 25! See, so smoking doesn’t always make you age prematurely. She wanted a photo together before I went on so I got one too.

The young looking smoker - she's got 3 kids 29, 27 and 25 years old

By about 10am I had reached Astorga - a lovely town with a palace designed and constructed by Gaudi from 1989 to 1936. This was built quickly considering the cathedral in Burgos took 300 years to complete.

Other photos in Astorga:

I'm not sure if this cyclist is stopping to admire this building or because this was at the top of a really steep hill.

An Italian guy and his cart just arriving in Astorga

I continued on my way. The camino was mainly a path on the side of a road and as I caught up with people I'd sometimes ride alongside them having a chat.

I passed the Italian guy and his cart again. He was moving fairly quickly.

It was interesting to have the old buildings beside the new

I passed through some old villages

I stopped to have lunch of gazpacho soup before a big hill climb. The gazpacho soup wasn’t nearly as good as Jeff makes me.

Lunch stop place

Half way up the hill the black clouds came over and I thought that it would pour so stopped at a bar on the mountain and had a beer – thinking that if it was going to rain I was going to call it a day. But it didn’t so I trudged on up the rest of the hill. I cycled with the group from Mexico and Miami for an hour or so. They were on an organised cycling trip to Santiago – so they didn’t have any bags on their bike so it was hard work keeping up with them – but they weren’t that fit either so were going pretty slowly. They had a guide cycling with them and another guy following in the van with all their gear.

It was beautiful up in the hills/mountains. I do love that scenery much more than the flat dry parts. Coming down the other side of the mountain was exhilarating – and chilly.

I loved this sign

It was at the village of Acebo that I saw Song, the rich Korean man who I’d had dinner with in Lorca – he’s the one who said it was a secret about what his company did or produced. It was lovely to see him again so we sat and had a couple of claras together (beer with lemon).

Song's cart - he saw a man with one when he did the Camino last year
so took a photo and then had one made up in Korea

A young scout group rest before continuing on their journey.

Song recommended a hostal in the next village and said it was a great place to stay. He told me to stay there and he’d pay – and to make sure I got a room with a river view and he wanted me to make a reservation for his room as well.

The hostal was gorgeous and on arrival I asked if they had dorm rooms for pilgrims. They didn’t but they gave me a discount for my single room – so it was only 35 instead of 48 euros. For Song, they let him have the suite at the top for only 50 euros – which had 360 degree views of the mountains, river and village. Of course I paid for my room on arrival but I did let Song pay for the dinner we had as I was going to pay for dinner the next night.

My very own room

The view from my window

Hostals are more like our hotels. They seem to have three tiers of hotel style accommodation – the Casa Rural places are the cheapest (which are like our B&Bs and often in someone’s home) and then there’s the Hostals, like small hotels, and then there are the hotels – and they seem big and organised and are rated by stars.

Song walks 40+km every day so never gets to see the same walkers again as they generally do 20-30km per day - so he often has to eat alone. He loves good food and good wine and only orders wine by the bottle – but can only drink half of it. He said ‘I’m only good at smoking cigarettes but am not good at drinking alcohol’. Also, the good restaurants’ best dishes are often only for 2 people – so he’s happy to have someone to share the wine and dinner with.

We had such a fun night. The restaurant that was apparenlty the best in town was very modern – but the restaurant didn’t open till 9.30pm – which is typical in Spain. So we had a drink in the garden and wandered onto the next best restaurant, Casa Ramon.

Wandering down the street

I love the flowerpots

Apparently, Casa Ramon is in the movie 'The Way'. I liked this restaurant much more that the one we'd had a drink in as it was down to earth had more character. There were a few Spanish people drinking beer and eating tapas when we arrived and it was great they had tables outside on the pavement.

Song talked to the chef to ask what his recommendations were - well he didn’t word it quite that way – it was more like: ‘what is the best food you can cook for us?’ The chef Ramon gave us some options. I chose foie gras salad and then fillet mignon. Both were absolutely perfect. I would say it’s one of the best steaks I’ve ever had. We got to meet the whole family (the mother of the chef, the chef’s sister and brother and his cousins) and we ended up all sitting around drinking together and eating slices of pork the mother had made. She just carried it to the table beside us and her daughter slice it up and we’d eat it with our fingers.