Overnight - Municipal Albergue
It's farewell to beautiful Leon and back on the road. Of the small number of cities I've visited on this trip so far, it rivals Bordeaux in terms of its attractiveness and allure - at least the old parts of each place. My limited experience with the outskirts and suburban areas of both was largely forgettable.
I was tossing up whether to wait for the free 7:30am hotel breakfast or just get going, and ultimately decided the latter. After a couple of slack walking days, I was itching to get back into it so headed out just on 7:00am - with a final walk-by of that incredible cathedral.
The plan today was to make the municipal albergue at San Martin Del Camino - a reasonable 26 kilometres up the road, alongside mostly flat, stark terrain.
Unfortunately, today will go down as probably my least favourite walking day on the Camino so far.
It started promisingly enough with an early morning route through parts of the old town I hadn't yet seen, including a very impressive building which is now a hotel. It has a sculpture of a seated, weary pilgrim in front of it and rivals Le Grand Hotel in Bordeaux for the grandeur and opulence of its exterior.
But it was all downhill from there (metaphorically speaking, at least). The outer industrial areas of Leon seemed to last forever, with the very busy main road, which the track follows, compounding the dreariness of it all. But in the words of the great Forrest Gump when speaking of unpleasant things - "And that's all I have to say about that".
It wasn't a total loss though. The final five kilometres into San Martin Del Camino, still close to the busy road, was much more rural and more reminiscent of some of the great pre-Leon stages. And I had some great company towards the end too, after again bumping into Kim and Martina, who I'd spent the evening with in Leon and at previous points along the way.
After checking into the municipal albergue as one of the first guests for the day, I left my stuff on a bottom bunk (in a dorm with 16 double bunks) and we headed to a private albergue up the road for the pilgrims’ lunch. The highlight was the vegetarian paella, which restored my faith in the dish after a less than appetizing first paella experience at Hontanas.
The rest of the day involved generally lounging around in the gardens of the albergue and drinking tea at the bar across the road. I became convinced that the same half a dozen old men I’d seen at bars earlier on the way were following me when their doppelgangers also appeared in this bar.
Weather - The temperature signs when I headed out of town showed 16 degrees and it warmed up as usual along the way.
Health - A couple of leg niggles that I'd experienced early on made a reappearance this morning, but settled down again after an hour or so. It was almost as if they were saying after their day off - "Hey, what's going on here? I thought we were done with this long distance walking business?" Bad news, fellas - a couple more weeks yet.
Food - Apple; Pilgrims lunch at nearby albergue (bread basket, mixed salad, vegetarian paella, mixed meats); Pots of tea x3 at San Martin bar; Orange; Banana
Expenses – Accommodation - 5.00; Food/Drink - 13.91 Total - 18.91
Walking time - 5 hours (start 7:00am, arrive at accommodation 12:00pm)
Brierley distance - 26.0km (total 489.6km)
Daily Steps - 37,299
Total Camino steps - 786,564
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