Molinaseca to Villafranca del Bierzo
Francesca and I set off together along the road and I never saw the old albergue that I had stopped at before, maybe it's there but if so I never recognised it. I remember there was rows of tents for overflow in the grounds alongside. Perhaps that is now built on and was the reason I never saw it. It was cold but we could see the sun now and again.
We passed the small village of Campo and I think we had a coffee here but the first highlight of today was about 8 k from our starting point when we came into Ponferrada and this town has a wonderful Templas castle.
I was shocked at the work that was going on but had to admit it still is the most incredible building. As far as I could understand they are building inside the castle itself, we tried to look inside but were turned away.
After taking some great photos we skirted the walls to the other side of town.
We had a job to find our way and would have got really lost had not a kind workman over the opposite side of the busy intersection called out to us to cross over and take another road where we found the arrows again. Next I remember a small village on the top of a hill and here we had to go through a tunnel in the building and then old nunnery gardens. Huertas de Sacramento I believe it's called. We stopped and had a drink and rested and massaged and treated my ankle here, then went on. My ankle was giving me a lot of trouble and I had to keep stopping and massaging it and I was worried if it was going to keep this up as we still had a long way to go. The next stop would have been Columbrianos, here we turned from the track into the square. I took a photo
of the superb wood carved statue of a typical peasant lady and child there then we went to find a bakers shop for bread and cakes. Francesca was waiting while I was being served.It was in the shop window she saw it, a huge great big pink Willie complete with liberal cream decoration!!! Was it a birthday cake, errr wedding cake or to celebrate the honeymoon, I have no idea. Francesca had to grab the nearest person and make them look and we were all laughing fit to burst as we came out and even then Francesca had to grab a fellow peregrino from the street and made him go with her to take a look. I have never seen such an unusual cake to say the least. Unfortunately I never thought about taking a photo till we were some way out of town and it was too late!
My ankle still hurt like hell but would soon feel better each time when we rested. I had a 103 brandy at one café for 'medicinal purposes' and after that it let me go on till the end of the day with no pain!
Francesca said in disgust on tasting the 103,
"Yuk! That’s not Brandy!" .
I didn't care it worked for me. At one point we were walking on a tarmac road, that went to Villafranca but on my insistence we followed the arrows and they took us way out through the vineyards and over some lovely country
and on to a tiny village, one I certainty had never seen before.
It was enchanting and unspoilt. We were not too sure we were on the right track as the arrows had been few and far between. As you know Francesca had wanted to keep on the main road, it had been my idea to keep following arrows and we were both tired now and had no idea how much further we had to go.
She, like me, did love the chance to see this old village though and the weather was good to us today and we enjoyed it immensely, although it must have been 35 km's we had walked by the time we strolled into Villafranca.
I had stopped in the first albergue last time so now we went a little further and found the very old one by a little church near the top of the hill, most of the town being down from here and in the bottom of the valley near the river.
Everyone was told by Francesca how we had come the long way!! It was crowded and bustling with peregrinos but we got issued bunks and had a shower, it was quite primitive and we decided to eat in town. Clean and refreshed we walked down there and hunted for a restaurant. As always we couldn't find much open at this time of day. It's a lovely old town.
We got a good look round as I got some cash from a 'hole in the wall'and we finished up walking back into the main square. We found a table and had a couple of beers sitting outside in the sun. Laughing and chatting we ordered a nice meal and a bottle of wine right here in the plaza. We were both quite inebriated when we set out to return and we took one of my short cuts! It had been four years since I had last walked the narrow streets of this old town, they can be quite confusing! We now found ourselves at the top of a hill and could see across the wide gully (barranco) to the albergue. Not far as the crow flies! Remember we had already walked 35 km today, with legs like jelly we took the steep road down and at the bottom we decided (Francesca will say I decided) the shortest way was to climb the steep grassy bank up to the road at the top. Well it probably wasn't all that far, but it was very, very steep and with stinging nettles in places. Not only that, we both had a fit of the giggles as we climbed and slipped then climbed again. Francesca was quite sure now she would never follow an Australian again! At last we reached the top and walked the last few yards on the road back to the albergue. Having brushed our teeth we retired to our bunks in the packed little dorm with the creaky and dangerous wooden staircase, I might add, down which you have to go to get out to the toilets, God help them if ever there's a fire.
It was probably the wine - I of course had to risk them twice in the night! When returning the last time I must have fallen asleep on my back, because I now awoke wondering why my pillow was bouncing up and down like a mad thing! We were so packed in, the next bunk with a young lady peregrina in it was head to head with mine and I must have been snoring like a train and this was her way to make me turn over, chuckle! Well I had wanted to do that so many times to others, how could I complain!
END DAY 31 = approx. 30.5 km Sub Total = 429.6 km Total = 761.7 km
