It was just daybreak when I left Hospital de Orbigo. After a short walk, I came to the next village called Villares de Orbigo.
I had this wonderful egg, bacon, OJ and coffee breakfast that fueled me for the day. I know it seems like I talk a lot about food, but that’s what keeps me going, and I love the variety of choices that I’m finding.
Lots of people go for the bread choices of pastries, croissants, and tortillas that are really potato pies.
Our trail took us through a plantation of pine trees, all laid out perfectly.
After an hour or so, walking through the open fields, I came across this self-service café set up by this hippie Spaniard.
It was an amazing gathering place where he had all kinds of beverages offered fruit. I ended up eating three slices of watermelon. I also made some Zumo de Narjana— orange juice— using the press. I used up three oranges just to make the half a glass of OJ so I can see why the café charges anywhere from €2 to €3, where they use this machine to process the oranges in the juice. It’s quite fascinating to watch.
Sue, Melissa, and Mariano showed up as I was having my third slice of watermelon and dug into the treats. Payment was based on the honor system. I noticed the hippie Spaniard would occasionally pull off the euro bills, and leave the smaller coins.
This was a great stop over for a long day ahead.
As I approach Astorga, we had to cross the railroad tracks on this peculiar bridge.
As we continued to climb up to the city, the storm clouds gathered, and you could hear thunder, and fortunately we avoided most of the rain.
There were some beautiful churches in Astorga as well as so old Roman ruins.
The plazas, bars, and restaurants were filled with local people since it was a Saturday.
Another beautiful Mural fills this wall similar to other cities we have hiked through
In the next town after Astorga, I stopped for a lemonade and they gave me a free tapas with my drink. In this area they seem to do that at all the places I stop. They are tasty welcoming.
It was a couple hours gradual climb up to Santa Catalina de Somoza where I would stay, and was glad this storm cloud held off for a while
When I almost got there, Mariano had caught up with me.
We checked into the first albergue that we came to called El Caminante run by a woman named Ophelia. We were the only two people staying in the albergue section of this place and it cost €15.
We had the set pilgrim dinner there of soup, thin sliced pork loin, and ice cream.
Thanks for these posts Astorga sounds like a very interesting city. Might be worth a longer visit. It looks like your fascination with orange juice persists. Do they not serve oatmeal for breakfast, or is that an English and New England thing? Jim
ReplyDeleteI haven’t seen oatmeal, but I did see a box of cornflakes one time that some South Korean were pouring on a flat plate and then just picking it up with their hands dry. I guess they didn’t know about adding milk and sugar.
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