We all felt pretty good this morning after our really long day. We had a meager breakfast provided by the hotel of yogurt, and some hard bread with jam and butter.
We passed the Episcopal Palace, an art museum built by Gaudí. One of only 3 Gaudí buildings outside of Catalan. Really interesting entrance. It was right next door to La Catedral de Santa Maria de Astorga. We didn’t get a chance to go inside but the website shows some amazing architecture. The outside of it was certainly beautiful.
Today was a nice walk dotted by villages every 5 kilometers or so. We stopped at the first village to have a proper breakfast of fried eggs, salad and some crispy bacon. And several cups of coffee. I made some new friends who meowed at me until I gave them the rest of my bacon. Then they promptly bathed themselves until the next table sat down. Then they made new friends all over again.
We arrived at our cute Albergue el Pilar. Really nice lady running it. Normally when you walk in, they demand to see your passport right away. This lady told us not to worry about it right now, she’d get it from us later. We wanted private rooms instead of sharing the bunkhouse with the rest of the pilgrims, so she took us into her private home. We had to share a bathroom between the 3 of us, but we had no issues there.
We are starting to run into the same pilgrims over and over. There are a lot more of them on this end stage. The great thing is that because they are from all over Europe, English is the common language, so we are included in a lot of their conversations. One of the guys is from Germany and he has brought his Rottweiler with him. Beautiful dog. He tells everyone to keep away from him, because his job is to guard his backpack and he might not be so friendly. But, I’m not so sure.
09 Oct 2020 ~ 30,831 Steps ~ 12.7 miles ~ 72ºF ☀️