Day 20 - Sahagun to El Burgo Ranero

We had a great afternoon and evening in Sahagun.

Unfortunately we did not manage to have a siesta to sleep off yesterday's roast lamb lunch but we did sit back and watch "The Way", again. It was fun trying to recognize the places that we have been to up to this point.

Because we had a large late lunch we opted for a modest dinner and purchased a bottle of Rioja Reserva and some bread, cheese and Iberico sausage which we ate in our room.

The room had air-conditioning and therefore we were able to put the shutters down to block out the twilight and had an early night.

We arranged with the owner of the hotel, who was lovely, for an early breakfast at 6:30am.

Fresh orange juice, toast (to which we added our vegemite) and really great coffee. The owner was elated when I told him it was the best coffee that we have had so far in Spain. My reward was another, an extra, cup of coffee.

We then set off on our 18km walk to El Burgo Ranero, leaving Sahagun via the "Del Canto" stone bridge over the Rio Cea.

As we left town, dawn was breaking and we were able to view the change of shift with the sun rising and the moon retiring for the day. This was the best view we had all day.

The rest of the day's scenery was a relatively boring track running parallel to a country road which ran through grain fields.

Today the walking track was hemmed by trees which, although they provided little shade, were pleasant to view.

We stopped at the Church of the Virgen de Perales. We stopped again for coffee at Bercianos del Real Camino. And we stopped again because Vicki had to go water the flowers - must have been too many coffee stops!

With all these stops we only managed a modest average pace of 5.2km for the 17.5km from Sahagun to El Burgo Ranero. The trip took 3h24m.

There is not much to El Burgo Ranero and the only photo op was the church in the centre of town, which is covered with birds nests.

We were fortunate as, as we were entering town, the fish, bread, fruit and vege truck had stopped in the main street. This allowed us to buy some bananas and nectarines. The nectarines here are great!

Our only challenge for the rest of the day is finding something to do so that we do not die of boredom. Maybe another movie dubbed in Spanish.

Tomorrow is another short days walk of 18km to Mansila de las Mulas. The day after that we get to Leon.