- Distance today: 10.7 mi
- Distance Camino 2017: 249.9 mi
Yippeee! We’re halfway to Santiago!
In a lot of ways, today’s walk was like yesterday’s. It was what we consider a long walk (>16km or 10 miles). The path was mostly flat with only gentle ups and downs. The weather was perfect: temperature in 50-60 range, slight breeze behind us, no precipitation.
Even though today we walked a mile less than yesterday, what made today more difficult was: the first 3.5 miles were paved rather than dirt, there were no villages or bars or restrooms for the entire 10.6 miles and it occurred a day after walking nearly twelve miles.
Nevertheless, it was on balance, a good day, a satisfying day for both of us.
Unlike most of our walks, there’s not a lot to share about our day.
In summary, we left Carrión at 6:45 in the dark and walked for the first 3.5 miles on a very
straight Roman road that had been restored by paving it with asphalt.
The next 7 miles were also on a straight Roman road that had been covered with a mixture of gravel and dirt and packed down by farm equipment and pilgrims for many years.
We arrived in Calzadilla de la Cueza (pop. 54) at 10:45 and were allowed to check-in to our room at the Camino Real hostel (40€) right away and did so as soon as we ate a late breakfast.
This small village of 54 inhabitants has a church but it was locked. Main Street is at best 100 yards long with a few crossing streets with maybe 4-5 houses deep. Other than 2 albergues, our hotel, and a tiny grocery store (which was also closed) there isn’t anything else here but houses and buildings housing farm equipment.
Because of lack of stone, most of the houses are made of brick and stucco. The bricks appear to be very crude but have been around for a long time. You can see the straw mixed in with the clay and several houses have very old brick that has been maintained and retained with newer brick add-ons.
After a pizza dinner we took a walk and found the 16th century church, Iglesia de San Martin, open and an 87 year old, lifetime resident took us on a tour. We understood a little of what she said, enough to keep her from being as frustrated as we. Several of the wood icons in the church were from the 13th century and her describing them to us made it extra special. She wouldn’t let us take her photo because she wasn’t dressed up for it. It created another wonderful memory for Camino 2017.
Jimandi 