Route: Carrión de los Condes - Terradillos de los Templarios I passed halfway!! Now it is all down, in km that is. I am about 80 km from Leon. From there it is about 300km. Some 10-12 days.Last night I went to a mass specially for pelgrims. Very nice and with a personal blessing for all pilgrims. A nun gave us a present in the form of a colored star. Nice touch.Today was a somewhat boring day since there was no village for the first 17 km. I made myself a huge sandwich for the trip, ham tomatos and some olive oil. Great eating for under way.Flat terrain and a straight roads ... read more

Route: Hotanas - Boadilla del Camino A day that started with the depressing news of the Venezuelan elections. 6 more years with this clown. What a bummer. I walked around 29 km in about 6.30 hours. A difficult last 8 km walking in plain sun with a strong head wind. Notwithstanding my 360 degrees shade hat, I feel the sunburn in my face and neck. Arrived at the albergue at 3.30 and have been having a couple of beers with the United Nations, i.e. an Irishman, a French Canadian, an American, a German and a Norwegian. What I confirmed during the day are the different stages in the mindset during the day. The first 3 hours (10-15 km) are great for thinking and meditation. The following 2 hours are good (and I need) to talk to ... read more

Route: Agés - Burgos Finding sleeping accomodations were quite different from what I immagined. I anticipated that Burgos being a larger city, finding a hotel would not be difficult. Not having made hotel reservations I ended up almost leaving Burgos and getting a hotel in the outskirts of town. What was expected to be 22 km became almost 29 in about 6.5 hours. I had the opportunity to go back to the center of town and see why getting a hotel was so complicated. There was a medieval revival related to El Cid taking place with people coming in from overall Spain dressed up in medieval style giving performances all over the place. A lot of people around and activities everywhere. Very nice. Visited the cathedral that is spectacular. Tomorrow back to the country side that ... read more

Route: Cirueña - Belorado Again a (too) sunny day. I walked 30 km in about 7 hours; not bad given the warmth. The surroundings here are somewhat dull, fields as far as you can see, very little variation and no trees and shade anywhere. Deforestation took its toll some time ago. Fortunately today there were 4 villages on the way each marked with its old church in the middle at the highest point. Amazing to see the elaborate decoration in gold in each one of them and that to know that these villages have no more than a couple of hundred inhabitants. Last nights lodging turned out to be a bit surprising. The couple of times that I have slept at an albergue I have not had problems with people snoring. This morning nevertheless, I was ... read more

Route: Viana - Ventosa Today a long day, 31.44 km in 7.15 hours but a good one, although a lot of urban walk, i.e. in cities on asphalt or concrete. We passed Logroño and Navarrete, cities of some size . Nice sunny weather but some frustrations and missers. The frustration came from a gentleman from Belgium who told he had started in Leuven in Belgium about 3 month ago and that had walked 1500 km already. As he put it, he just went for a walk and he now was discounting what was still missing.... Thinking you had walked a lot and hearing from someone that has walked 5 times more is somewhat humiliating. The misser was that I was given a number of hotels in the village of Sotés, 2 km of the Camino. As ... read more