Today was the day that we had been anticipating for a few days.
The long steep climb from Villafranca del Briezo to O Cebreiro.
Some 30km with a total ascent of 920m.
The day was forecast to be hot and, with the long steep climb, we decided to set off early.
We managed to get on the road by 5:50am and confidently marched through the ton under the guidance of the street lights.
As soon as we left the town, we realized it was pitch dark and we needed a torch.
Luckily the path was alongside a road and we could see some walker ahead of us with lights. So we followed the road and tried to catch up to the lights.
The lights turned out to be a couple of cell phones in torch mode.
By this time our night vision was kicking in, so we charged ahead unaided.
Once the daylight emerged, we began to realize how much the walk, and how much the scenery, was different to previous days. Beautiful!!
We had steep hills and valleys. The hill cuttings and motorway bridges were grand.
We had rivers and streams and babbling brooks and even water oozing out of the ground.
As we climbed further up the hill to reach the top of the mountain, the scenery was magnificent.
Having missed breakfast in Villafranca del Briezo, we stopped at several villages for coffee on the way. Each were wonderful.
The climb itself was, we thought, a little shorter and not as steep or as long a climb as advertised.
We finished by 12:15pm and then waited for others to arrive.
Many people we have met along the Camino, from as early as St Jean Pied de Port, are here in O Cebreiro and there is a high level of fellowship.
The 9th century church in O Cebreiro (right) is reported to be the oldest church on the Camino.
We only have 7 more days walking before we arrive at Santiago de Compostela and we expect that most of the group that we are now with will be arriving at Santiago de Compostela at the same time as us.
We had a short but great day in Ponferrada yesterday.
By the time we finished our walk, showered, and blogged, it was 5pm.
We then set off to do some sightseeing but the city was dead - like a ghost town - and the Castillo was closed.
What a bummer!
We then did the second best thing we could do. We found a bar with rock and roll music and had a beer for lunch.
The atmosphere was so good we decided to progress immediately to dinner and order a Bierzo Crianza and a plate of jamon y queso especial.
All was very good.
We then went back to our junior suite at the Marriott and our air-conditioning and had an early night. Just what the doctor ordered after our long walk yesterday.
After a late breakfast this morning we set off at about 8:30am for the relatively short walk to Villafranca del Bierzo.
Immediately we could see the mountains in the distance over which we need to climb tomorrow.
Most of this walk was through the many villages and market gardens that surround Ponferrada. As we progressed further from Ponferrada, we began to walk through vineyards and orchards.
We purchased some cherries from an enterprising young girl, maybe Amber's age, who was spending her summer holidays running a roadside stall.
Interestingly, we walked past the vineyard from which the wine we drank the previous evening came from.
We saw a group of about a dozen Koreans that started the Camino about the same time as us but who we have not seen for over a week. It is amazing that, with the ebb and flow of each persons individual journey, you can sometimes run into people but at other times not see them at all.
After the long walk of yesterday, the short walk of 23km to Villafranca del Bierzo through rolling hills was a breeze.
We took a casual approach to today's walk to fortify ourselves for the longer walk over the mountains to O'Cebreiro tomorrow.
Highlight for today: - after a week of not finding a laundry facility, the hotel we are staying in offered to wash, dry and fold our washing for 10 euro. Deal!!
We are staying at the Hotel Mendez where our room is relatively small but the staff are fantastic. We had lunch in the hotel after we arrived with a bottle of Altos de Losada 2008. The lunch and the wine were excellent.
The remainder of the day we will rest ahead of an early start tomorrow and our climb over the mountain.
What a great day in so many ways.
We enjoyed the greatest scenery that we have seen to date in Spain and took some 200 photos.
It rained the previous night and there was some residual cloud this morning As a result the temperature for most of the journey was cool, 12 degrees when we set off and 32 degrees by the end of the journey. Ideal for such a long walk as we had today.
Vicki, being a geologist, kept stopping to look at the structure and lick the rocks!
We walked 43,755 steps, 35.5km, according to our GPS, with a total ascent of 565m and a total descent of 1200m. For me this equated to 3,000kcal or 20 glasses of beer. Excellent!
The highest point in the mountain crossing was 1501m, according to our GPS, at Cruz de Ferro, a tall cross which marks the highest point on the Camino Frances.
As is tradition, we had carried a small rock from Australia and laid this at the base of the cross.
The total walk took 7h13m for an average pace, door to door, of 4.9km/hr. Pace was moderate due to the number of coffee stops (3) and the number of stops to enjoy the view and take photos.
The colours today were excellent and it was really difficult to sift through all of our photos to distill the many photos we took to ten that best represented our day.
Most of the day our track was along narrow pathways through the woods and across the mountains. Some was very well maintained and some was like walking across a rock pile at a quarry.
All was enjoyable and, touch wood, we have sustained no injuries.
We could see Ponferrada from the top of the mountain - many kilometres before we actually got to walk into the town.
Our arrival in Ponferrada marks the end of the sixth stage of our eight stage journey from St Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in NW Spain. We now have 211km remaining to walk before we arrive in Santiago de Compostela.
Ponferrada has one of the best kept medieval castles in Northern Spain, El Castillo de los Templarios. The castle was held by the Templar order who protected the Camino route in medieval times.
During the Roman Empire times the area was important as a mining centre. The most famous being the ancient gold mines of Las Medulas.
Tomorrow we walk 24km to Villa Franca del Bierzo and then on Wednesday 31km to O'Cebreiro. The walk to O'Cebreiro requires an ascent of 920m. We can't wait!
We have a great hotel in Ponferrada, the AC Marriot, who have kindly upgraded us to a Junior Suite with a KING size bed. First in Spain.
We are now off to hobble around the city to do some sightseeing and eat.
We had a great afternoon in Astorga and ate too much.
A lovely pizza for lunch and then a three course pilgrims meal in our hotel at night around 9pm for dinner - very Spanish. The pilgrims meal was excellent, asparagus wrapped in ham, pan fried sea bass and tiramisu.
The festive air in Astorga that we saw when we entered town continued into the afternoon and evening. Many people were in period costume by evening and the partying continued well into the night.
We had to use ear plugs to get to sleep for the second night in a row.
Today's program involved a relatively short walk of 19.9km from Astorga to Rabanal del Camino.
The temperature today was perfect for walking. Very mild. 12 degrees when we set off and 20 degrees when we finished.
We made several stops for coffee and maintained a very leisurely pace of 4.6km/hr, door to door, to complete the 19.9km in 4h23m.
The sky was dark and foreboding for most of the morning with a threat of rain but it did not rain while we were walking. We have been very fortunate so far not to have had to walk in the rain.
The scenery was quite varied today and we walked through rolling hills with bush land, oak forests and pine forests. In the distance we could see the omnipresent windmills that we have seen all across northern Spain. We could also see the hills that await our journey tomorrow.
Rabanal del Camino is a smaller town on a hill but with several hotels, bars and restaurants. Most of the buildings are made from stone.
We will explore the town more in the afternoon.
We believe that Rabanal del Camino is having its festival today. Might need the ear plugs again tonight.
Tomorrow we have a longer walk of 33km to Ponferrada, which will mark the end of the sixth stage of our eight stage walk from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. The walk includes an ascent of 250m followed by a descent of 850m.
Today was our second longest days walking - 28.6km from Villadangos del Paramo to Astorga.
We could see the general path of our route from the window of our hotel in Villadangos del Paramo the previous evening at sunset. The hills looked difficult but turned out to be fine.
Our previous longest day was the hot march into Pamplona some 20 days ago.
Today, however, we had the fortune of a really mild and cool day and therefore the walking was a lot easier.
Offsetting this was the fact that we were tired, not having slept much the previous night due to an all-night festival in Villadangos del Paramo with music and dancing just metres from our hotel window.
We should have given up hoping that the party-goers would have finished before breakfast and just gone out and joined them!
We ran into a lot of the all night revelers at breakfast at the hotel. Some still drinking beer, some into the coffee and some slumped all over the tables in the hotel.
With the exception of the lack of sleep, we were very impressed with our hotel in Villadangos del Paramo, the Hotel Libertad.
The host and his family were excellent and provided a fantastic pilgrims meal, probably the second best pilgrims meal we have had in Spain. We also purchased a bottle of Marques de Riscal Reserva 2003, which was very, very good.
After our sleepless night, we were late starting and did not get away until 8:30am.
Today's walk was much more varied to those of the previous week, and we walked through towns, farm-land, bush and woodlands. We also had some good ascents and descents to warm the body in the milder temperatures we experienced today.
Our pace was purposely slower in recognition of (i) the longer distance today and (ii) the fact that we are building up to a 33km day on Monday.
We completed the 28.6km in 5h57m for an average pace, door to door, of 4.8km/hr.
We had one long coffee stop at Hospital de Orbigo and had hoped for a second a few kilometres further on but, unfortunately, could not find an open cafe.
The 800 year old bridge at Hospital de Ortega is impressive. It has some 19 arches. In the past, if you wanted to cross the bridge you had to tournament. If you did not want to tournament, then you had to leave a glove as a sign of cowardness and wade the river, not cross the bridge.
We could see our destination, Astorga, from the crest of a hill about 5km from the city.
It was a long slow march from there to the Cathedral and our hotel, the hotel Gaudi, which overlooks the Cathedral. I expect that we will hear the Cathedral bells all night.
The Cathedral is impressive but really difficult to show in a photo as it is surrounded by other buildings and therefore it is difficult to get a good vantage point for a photo.
Astorga has long history and was, at one point, a Roman stronghold. On the way to the Cathedral we inspected some Roman ruins dating from 200AD where the floor tiles are largely intact. Wonderful work.
There is currently a 4-day festival in Astorga, a medieval festival. Consequently, there is a festive air and many people are walking around in period costumes.
We had a quick pizza for lunch and now Vicki is catching up on some sleep while I blog.
We are now well into the sixth stage of our eight stage journey from St Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela and now have only 264km remaining before we get to Santiago de Compostela on August 7.
Tomorrow we have a short walk of 20km to Rabanal del Camino and Monday we have a 33km walk to Ponferrada.
Our day and night in Leon was a fantastic change to the small villages that we have been in most of the trip.
We wondered around the city taking photos, then checked into the Parador San Marcos.
The same hotel as in the movie, "The Way".
Sadly, we did not get the room wit the bathtub and champagne, or the room large enough to accommodate three friends and a bottle of Spanish Grappa. Nor could we find the room service menu to order the Roast Lamb and Rioja.
Notwithstanding these small deficiencies, we both loved the hotel, particularly the ambiance of the building which is over 900 years old.
Vicki particularly liked the built in sound effects that came with the ancient floor boards.
After checking into the hotel and changing, we wondered the city some more and then had a fantastic late lunch, or was it early dinner (anyway, it was 4pm) at a small restaurant called Mercado De Varillas, which is located two blocks from the Cathedral off the main street.
We shared a platter of Leon cured meats and hard cheeses followed by a shared plate of traditional chicken and vegetables cooked in a clay pot, all washed down with some Rioja Crianza. Very nice.
Vicki then toured the Cathedral while I had a back massage. The back massage was fantastic and Vicki said that the stained glass in the Cathedral was fantastic as well.
No photos of the Cathedral as the sign said they were prohibited and therefore Vicki did not take the camera. Everyone else did, ignored the sign and snapped away.
We then caught up with some Irish friends (and a Bavarian) for drinks before doing some window shopping.
Vicki nearly brought a bag for Amber (our long lost daughter), but since Amber, who is at Summer Camp in Canada, has not emailed for four weeks, Vicki decided not to buy it.
Hint hint Amber.
We then brought a bottle of Leon wine, Peregrino 14 Tinto Prieto Picudo Crinza 2008, and watched the sun go down, before an early night.
Breakfast at the Parador was what you would expect from a quality hotel. A very good spread with a wide range of hot and cold choices. We especially liked the bottles of red wine and champagne that were available, which we did not sample.
We then set off for Villadandos del Paramo around 8:30am.
Most of the morning was spent walking through urban Leon or satellite towns surrounding Leon.
Although this was not as enjoyable as walking in the wilderness, we at least had an unlimited supply of coffee shops, of which we stopped and tried two.
Our progress out of Leon was hampered by traffic lights, bad sidewalks, roundabouts, and coffee shops. This made the 20km hike from Leon a little longer than we expected with an average pace, door to door of 5.0km/hr.
With the urbanized nature of our walk today, photo opportunities were limited, therefore we decided to snap some of the roadside wildflowers to share those with our blog viewers.
We managed to get on the road by 5:50am and confidently marched through the ton under the guidance of the street lights.
Many people we have met along the Camino, from as early as St Jean Pied de Port, are here in O Cebreiro and there is a high level of fellowship.
