2012-09-27 Thursday

2012-09-27 Thursday

Astorga / Rabanal del Camino

Camino day 20. Today's segment is 22 Km. We woke up at 0700, packed our backpacks, and then met with Terry and Nancy to go out for breakfast. We bumped with Toni and Gunther as they were leaving for the Camino. We leisurely had our usual breakfast of coffee and toast while we waited for the Cathedral to open, at 0900. 

The Cathedral is big but nowhere near the size, beauty, or style of Burgos's or Leon's; but it's certainly worth a visit. This city was an ancient roman city, with some excavated roman ruins almost in front of our hotel. There's a catholic temple in here since the 3rd century. 

We saw the other attraction, the Palace designed by Gaudi, from the outside. This city is also famous for its chocolate and butter cookies, and we walked around the old city center while waited for the shops to open, Terry and Paulo wanted to buy to buy some. The shops only start to open at 100 at the earliest. Paulo also bought gloves, it's getting cold in the mornings; instead go gloves, I use my extra pair of wool socks as mitts, it works quite well. 

Astorga's Cathedral

Palace designed by Gaudi

We left town at 1030, it is cold, 8 Celsius, 46F, but it's sunny, and 20 minutes later we stopped to shed the jackets. It took us almost 2 hours to hit our stride, we were all a bit lethargic, I guess we did not fully recover from Yesterday 's long segment. Today, Terry, who likes to go out in front, hung back with Nancy, and by the first stop, Km 9 from Astorga, they were 10 minutes behind. 

On the second stop, an hour and a half later, we waited for them for 15 minutes and resumed walking when we saw them in the distance; it would take another 5 minutes for them to arrive where we were, and we were getting stiff with cold, we needed to get moving. 

Paulo and I arrived in Rabanal at 1530. This is a small village, 57 inhabitants, people live here since the medieval times, all houses are stone built. I arrived tired, the leg muscles pretty sore, hoping I will recover overnight because tomorrow we have to face the highest mountain of the Camino, at 1550 meters. We saw Toni and Gunther at the entrance to the village, they had arrived much earlier. Toni is staying at the albergue, while Gunther is staying at our hostel, the "El Refugio Real." We agreed to have dinner together at 2000.

Erico arriving in Rabanal del Camino

Paulo and I sat at the hostel bar to wait for Terry and Nancy to arrive, while drinking beer. Soon they arrived, and we had another round of beer with them. Today we had to hand wash our dirty clothes, there's no laundry service at the hostel, and Toni had told us that the albergue 's coin operated washer and drier were broken. 

Rabanal: view from my hostal window

At 1900, we all went to the chapel for a Gregorian chant service by the monks of the Benedictine Monastery "San Salvador del Monte Irago" located in the village. We found a place to seat, but it soon got jam packed, standing room only. The medieval chapel was rustic but beautiful in its simplicity, and the service was memorable. Afterwards, the six of us returned to our hostal for dinner, a basic but tasty Pilgrim's menu for 10 Euros. 

We are 242 Km from Santiago de Compostela.