Day 20 – Boadilla to Fromista

Walked: 4.9 mi. Camino2025: 103 mi.

We left Boadilla and walked on a dirt path through the fields for about a mile.
The path began to run parallel to the Canal de Castilla (Canal of Castile in English).
One of the many aqueducts that irrigate the fields growing various agricultural products.
A typical valve with controls the water flow to the fields.
Today, we walked past a worker who was making an adjustment to a water flow valve.

The Canal of Castile is a canal in the north of Spain. Constructed between the last half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, it was conceived to facilitate the transportation of wheat via mule pulled barges from Castile to the ports in the Bay of Biscay for export. The canal runs 207 km through the provinces of Burgos, Palencia and Valladolid, in the Autonomous Community of Castile and León. The canal was mostly used between 1850 and 1870 but competition with railways saw its use change to irrigation and for powering mills, in the latter part of the 19th century. Navigation ceased in 1959 with the closure of the locks. Parts of the canal are still in use, and although navigation is limited to tourism, the canal is used to irrigate 23,000 hectares (over 56,000 acres) in 48 municipalities. 

the canal irrigated fields
Typical picturesque scenery along the last half-mile of our walk along the canal.
Linda crossing the now defunct locks outside Fromista.
The view down the locks.
We walked into Fromista and stopped at the second open bar/bakery for breakfast. The first open bar service has poor and unfriendly in years past so we gave “Pan y Mas” ( Bread and more) our business instead. The owner was very friendly, the pastry and cafe con leche was good and the bathroom was clean!

It was just 10:00, so after stretching out breakfast, we briefly visited Iglesia de San Pedro, then walked to our hostal and found two comfortable seats on the front porch in the shade to hopefully get into our room sometime before the usual 2:00 p.m. checkin.

Our Hostal in Fromista, named “Santiago de Compostela”

After a few minutes, Jim became impatient and set out to on a reconnaissance mission to discover main meal options and to get some church photos. for the blog.

Iglesia de San Pedro (15th century)
interior of Iglesia de San Pedro.
Iglesia de San Martin seen from the town plaza
interior of San Martin, completed in 1066.
the simplistic Romanesque altar of Iglesia de San Martin. Dedicated to San Martin of Tours (316-397)

The only statues in San Martin are the three on the altar. Closeup’s are shown below:

St Martin (14th century)
Santiago (16th century)
Crucified Christ (13th century)

Jim’s search found the choices for our main meal were very limited. Our first choice was Los Palmeros, a Michelin 1star restaurant, which we discovered by accident and enjoyed in 2023. Sadly, it was totally booked today for private parties for both the lunch and evening meals. Only one other restaurant was open (typical of Fromista based on previous visits). We were very lucky in 2023!

At 11:00 a.m., Jim rejoined Linda on the porch and only a few minutes later, the owner, who recognized Linda from our stay here in 2014, said our room was ready and allowed us to checkin immediately.

After a brief rest in our room we ventured out to our sole choice for lunch and had our main meal for the day.

We both had tasty ensalada rusa’s first course.
Second course was slow cooked chicken for Linda….
… and rabbit, sautéed in wine sauce (conejo a la cazadora) for Jim

Amply sated from our main meal, we walked back to our room and chilled for the rest of the day doing our usuals.

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