Day: June 13, 2026

Day 18 – Castrojeriz to Itero de la Vega

Walked today: 7.6 mi. Camino’26: 122 mi.

We began our walk at 6:00 a.m. to hopefully catch a pretty sunrise as we climbed Alto de Mostelares. We walked for a mile before leaving Castrojeriz and then began walking across ancient wetlands via a still functioning Roman causeway. At the end of the causeway were the ruins and reconstruction of a Roman bridge of the 1st century.

Leaving a road around Castrojeriz and joining the dirt path again.
Walking on the path of a Roman road leading to a Roman causeway with Alto de Mostelares in the background and the “snaking” pathway up the side of the mountain.
Walking on the Roman causeway. Note the 1st-century Roman stonework supporting the causeway in bottom left of photo.
Looking back at a “disappointing” sunrise due to lack of clouds and other unknown causes.
Roman stone reinforcements for the end of the causeway and supports for a 2000 yr old bridge.

Immediately after crossing the bridge the path began a sharp rise upward to to the pinnacle of Alto de Mostelares.

The beginning of the path up the mountain.

We walked steadily with an occasional hesitation to catch a breath until we reached the top after a 700 ft climb.

Linda in the distance on her way up the slope.
Looking back where we’ve been.
Linda had a special glow about her near the end of the climb.
Beautiful view of the valley… sorry the photos don’t do justice.
Made it!!!
Final look back, until “next time”.

Once at the top, we allowed ourselves a 2 minute bench break, then proceeded to walk along the mesa for a quarter-mile, before carefully descending down on longest and steepest slope of Camino 2026, so far.

A brief 2 minute rest before moving on.
A classical meseta view as we walked along the top of Alto de Mostelares.
A hint of a difficult descent ahead.
Beginning a descent like nothing we’ve seen so far on Camino 2026.
Driving poles into the pavement to keep us from falling forward due to the extreme slope… all the way down.
Finally at the bottom, with a sigh of relief, even with a long, winding path ahead of us through the valley.

Once at the bottom, injury-free, thankfully, we continued a normal walk for the next 5 miles.

The path through the valley was very tolerable with the continuing cool breeze tempering a the emerging heat from the rising sun.
Near the end of the walk through the valley, we passed a food truck stationed at a “rest stop” that disapointingly has had no facilities but a vending machine… a nice addition compared to past caminos. (How about temporary restrooms for the Holy Year and beyond?)
We joined a paved road for a short while…
… before joining another dirt path.
We stopped at St. Nicolás Chapel, a perfectly placed primative albergue operated by an Italian Confraternity, built in the 11th-century and refurbished in the mid-1990’s.
The chapel inside
Sleeping area within the Chapel. A well- maintained building in back has restrooms and showers for guests and passing pilgrims.

Immediately after the Chapel was the Puenta del Fitero, commissioned by Alfonso VI in the 11th-century to unify the territories of Castile and Leon.

(Itero de la Vega was known as “Fitero” in the Middle Ages.)

The Puente del Fitero is considered one of the longest on the Camino Frances.

The initial section of the Fitero Bridge.
The rest of the Fitero Bridge seen from the middle of the bridge and looking into the connected province of Palencia.
The nicely shaded path into Itero de la Vega, our destination for today.
Patiently waiting for our room to be ready. We’re in the terrace outside the Albergue Puente de Fitero. Arriving at 9:30, we were informed that our room would be ready around 1:00 p.m. (Note: Jim’s apparent whitened hair was the result of accusing an apparition of St. Nicolas falsely of being Santa Claus.!)

We faced nearly a 4-hour wait to check in, so we spent the time watching and greeting pilgrims that walked by or stopped for r&r before moving on. We chatted with pilgrim friends from Switzerland, South Korea, Alabama and England that we had met over the past week that were catching and passing us today… that we may or may not see again.

We had breakfast, assorted drinks and snacks. Linda sat with our day packs on the terrace, while Jim (growing more impatient) took a tour of this very limited facility village (pop. 177) looking for potential sources for food for our main meal. He returned after a 20 minute exhausted search, empty-handed.

The view of our “not-yet-ready” room on the second floor of Albergue Puente de Fitero.

The restaurant menu options of our albergue are few, including a skimpy pilgrim dinner at 7:00 p.m,, so as we watched the supply of ready made bocadillos began to dwindle, we purchased 3 different variants.

Some of the ingredients in our three bocadillos were: iberian ham, sliced cheese, cream cheese, smoked salmon, avocado, pulled pork, tomato and lettuce.

From this collection of sandwiches we created a main meal to eat immediately, while we waited and the rest to take for later consumption in our room, which was finally ready for check in at 1:25p.m.

Once we got into our room we began our routines and had a reasonably smooth afternoon and evening.

Reflecting on day Day 18, the difficult walk seemed less difficult than our memories from seven prior caminos. Perhaps an interesting trend is developing for walking the Camino Frances in your 80’s.