All is well, 10:00 pm, now dry and warm in a nice double room at La Candela in Rabinal del Camino after walking a couple of kilometers back through cold drizzling rain from a really tasty dinner (pics to follow).
But first a couple of quick house keeping items. No. 1, you can make your own transportation and lodging arrangements for the Camino like I did for this Camino but there is a trade off, when the train departs without you and you miss your check in at your first hotel by 24 hours, you have no one else to blame.
Or you can have Eva Pla-Fábregas at Follow the Camino arrange everything for you and it will likely go perfectly (like my last trip) but in the unlikely event of a problem you can blame her and she’ll fix it.
No. 2, it’s currently 10 degrees celsius and dropping which up until recently didn’t mean much to me (other than its chilly) but I’ve now found the actual formula to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and it ain’t good. So here it is, take Celsius multiply by 9 divide by 5 and add 32 so 10 times 9 equals 90, divided by 5 equals 18, plus 32 equals 50 and tonight it’s dropping to 6 degrees Celsius, which according to the earlier formula, is 42 degrees Fahrenheit and tomorrow more of the same with rain. Certainly not the typical summer on the Camino in Northern Spain nor what we prepared for or anticipated but we will slog on, probably literally.
Back to the days events, I’m mostly gonna let the pictures speak for themselves cause it’s nearing midnight and we plan to start early in the morning (see tomorrow’s plans outlined below).
After an uneventful flight over, we checked our bags at the MEMadrid f/k/a the Hotel Gran Vitoria where Cary and I stayed on our honeymoon in 1985 and where Hannah
and I will be staying post Camino. Then we stood at the counter with the locals and had a bit of breakie at La Mallorquina in the Puerta del Sol, its historic location since 1894. The chocolate napolitan had Hannah at hello.
Determined to stay awake and moving, we walked about 8 miles from the Plaza Mayor to the Parque Buen Retiró and then circled back to the Mercando San Miguel for some tapas before getting our bags and heading to Charmartin for our train to Astorga. We arrived in time to tour the Cathedral and Gaudi’s Episcopal Palace, one of his few projects outside Catalonia (along with Il Capriccio in Comillas and Casa Botines in Leon which I’m pleased that we have also seen). It’s one his lesser masterpieces but an incredible masterpiece none the less.
Then by Luis’s taxi to Rabinal, hotel check in and dinner. I had the Menu Perregrino with 3 of what I considered to be less than generous pours of a delicious white wine from Bierzo. Hannah opted for a small bowl of soup but you can’t get a small bowl of soup in this country, they bring you the whole tureen! It was delicious and she couldn’t have been happier.
We walked back to the hotel in the cold rain, showered and got ready for bed and discussed and settled on our game plan for tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s destination is the Aroi Plaza in Ponferrada about 32 kilometers (19 miles) starting with a climb to Alto Altar which at 1515 meters is the highest point on the whole Camino and we pass a really bizarre ancient Knights Templar village which was totally abandoned until it was fairly recently brought back to life by a guy named Tomas who is its only habitant and
carries on the tradition as a modern Knight Hospitalero.
We plan to start out at daybreak 6:30 or so and to arrive in Ponferrada for lunch in the square but if it starts to rain or our feet start to hurt we have Luis’s number at the ready.
Buen Camino
