Murias de Rechivaldo

We are now west of Astorga after 25 kilometers.  We are trying to space the days so that we have a shorter day for the monster climb to O'Cebrero in a few days.

I have been reminded again of how fun it is to meet new people.  Last night we met a lovely young lady from Denmark, Neja, who had just finished high school and was evaluating her plans to go to medical school.  She spoke excellent English and was quite personable.   I then met Lucia from Barcelona.  We spoke mostly in Spanish which was fun and challenging.  Today we met a young lady named Maidere who indicated her heritage was Basque.  After commenting on her perfect English she admitted that she was an American whose grandparents were Basque.  She is from California and had worked in Madrid for the last year, had quit her job and was returning to the United States .  She is now traveling with us for a few days.  

Our first stop of the day, after the coffee break was the longest roman era bridge on the Camino.  It was also the site for jousting tournaments.

Paul tried jousting, but it lacked something.

Paul also found a copy of the Bridges of the Camino poster he wanted and it had contact information so may be able to get one.  He is almost salivating about it .

The walk continued thru agricultural areas and we saw people growing vegetables in old aqueducts - waste no space.

Other agricultural activities abounded.

Baby calf

Pumpkins 

Found a fun statue along the trail,  with all kinds of pilgrim discards.

We ran into another entrepreneur along the trail.

He was a free spirit with rock sculptures.

As we came into Astorga we found this statue and water fountain.  When we used the wTer fountain, the statue drinks also.

Astorga itself is beautiful with a Gaudi museum and a cathedral.

We continued on and where we stopped the trail appears to go on forever .

Guy