Our luxury evening with another pair of strange men proved delightfully uneventful. We basically had a bathroom to ourselves for the 10 euros each. Martin Sheen and Emilio signed "The Way" poster at this private alberge. Dinner up the street at the local bar with another German couple was excellent.
We awoke this morning at about the same time and were able to pack with the lights on for a change.
Heading out across the Meseta, the gale force winds kept us cool. The scenery was breathtaking, not at all what we had envisioned. The wind turbines in the distance were going full speed.
Today's walk was broken up perfectly with a restaurant and WC every 5 kilometres. At San Bol, the Hospitalera made us cafe con leche in an immaculately kept facility. At Hontanas we stopped at El Puntido, a busy bar that advertised on benches along the route.
At San Anton, in the ruins of the ancient convent we took advantage of the bush WC and aired our feet in the Refugio with the friendly Hospitalero, Rene Archibald from San Francisco. This alberge has no electricity, no water, can welcome only 12 Pilgrims, with the Hospitalero sleeping in a shipping container. Still the XIV th C ruins are spectacular.
The last two kilometres were along the pavement into Castrojeriz. This is a very long town with three major churches. Several new Alberges have opened, and we chose Ultriea with a sunny terrace and. medieval cellar and wine tasting event.
We enjoyed a "community meal" a huge multilingual group of pilgrims.
We enjoyed a demonstration of the wine press which was above the dinner table with a turn screw at the end of the room. Ada helped with the demonstration!
We were invited for a wine tasting in the Medieval cellar. We had to duck through a tiny archway.
This was not a tour for claustrophobics. We luckily had a pilgrim who could translate (perfectly for us from Spanish to English) the enthusiastic dialogue of our host who described the reconstruction which he personally excavated, archialogically analyzed and re-built.
Pat got the upper bunk tonight. We were in bed as usual by 9:00pm. Lights were out by 10:00 and the snoring began!
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