When leaving Itero de la Vega I met up with Deborah. We walked together for a while. I turned around to see the sunrise and loved her pink clothes with it.

Then we met up with David, a man from Ireland who I had met just before I arrived I Itero de la Vega. My plan was to just walk to Fromista which was 14.2 km. After talking with David am (who has done 8 Caminos (2 complete Frances and 6 other partials – this one is from Burgos) and reaching Fromista before 10 , I decided to see how far my body wanted to go. Besides, there was nothing in Fromista on a Sunday and not much in the other towns we passed through either. We’ll we made it to Villacazar de la Sirga which was 27.2 km that day. There were actually a couple of Sun Flowers still in bloom along the way.

We stayed in the Municipal Albergue which was quite adequate. It was 1 euro to make both showers turn on hot water for 10 minutes at the same time and it was a great shower. Who takes a 10 minute shower? When we walked around the town, we came across a group of locals having a great time partying, but when I asked them if it was a birthday or something, they told me they were just having fun.

It was a lovely little town to explore. I visited the Church of Santa Maria which was highly recommended in Brierley’s book.

I love the pilgrim statues.

The man at the church said that the restaurant in town has wonderful Spanish food, but they didn’t start serving until 8:30 so we just had the typical pilgrim menu eat the local bar with a woman from Switzerland named Mengia.
Because we walked so far on the 14th, we only had to do 6.5 km. to Carrion de Los Condes yesterday. The experience staying in the Albergue de Perigrinos Carrion with the Augustinan Nuns was so phenomenal that my words will never be sufficient. We arrived early so we were at the front of the line. When they opened the door, each person was greeted with a cup of tea and a nectarine. I will tell more later.

It was a great town to explore with many narrow streets, plazas, and parks. I liked watching the men play dominoes for dinero.

There were many pilgrims around town and I even saw Anna again. I was wanting ice-cream and I wanted a particular brand (Magnum) that had dark chocolate covered chocolate bars. But, of course, it was siesta time so I had to wait until 5 for the market to open. I had forgotten that in the market you had to buy a whole box of 6, but they were small bars. So, I bought it; ate two of them, and gave the rest away.

More about the Albergue experience. At 5:30 we went to Vespers at the church where the nuns were singing. Then we went back to the Albergue where all who were there introduced themselves and could say something about out Camino experience. The nuns and hospitalerios had guitars and drums and we had a sing-a-long. We each were invited to share a song and I shared one of my favorites, “How Can Anybody Ever Tell You.” Even though I was, of course, off tune, everybody loved it. An Woman from Israel sang a “Salam, Shalom” song. We all sang songs in Spanish and English together and even sang “Amazing Grace.”

Then several of us went into the kitchen to prepare our communal dinner.

We all went to Mass where we received a pilgrim blessing and a gift of a colored paper star to carry with us from the nuns and hospitalarios. The church was filled with pilgrims. Then those of us who were staying at the Albergue shared our communal dinner.

Here are David and I with me pretending to be participating in the wine drinking.

The whole experience totally overwhelmed me with emotions. I am so privileged to be here.
Today we walked about 17 km to Caldadilla de la Cueza where the Municipal Albergue is only 3 months old. I decided not to push any further and it is very clean with great mattresses and showers, but there are way too many flies. There is nothing to do here , so I am charging my devices and spending time on the blog. It takes about 90 minutes to charge the camera and I won’t walk away from it. People have already had things taken weeks ago in other Albergues. Dinner is In about another 90 minutes.

I decided I like the flexibility of deciding how far to walk each day by how tired I get.

Oh, here is one more sculpture I liked. I think it was in Villalcazar de Sirga.