Blogs from Ponferrada, Castile & León, Spain, Europe

I ate pizza with Greg last night. He is straight forward and doesn’t want to mix with women on the Camino. They complicate his life. He values his independence. He never married, no children. Happy days. I’m sharing a room with Greg, 2 Germans, and 2 Koreans. Guess who I was drawn to; Greg. For starters, he’s the only one I can talk to, and he has led an interesting life, changed direction work wise, many times, and is interested in similar things as I am. Except Hawthorn Football Club; he doesn’t follow footy. We went to the local pizza place, had vegetarian, chock full of asparagus, artichokes, and the usual fillings you expect, and chatted for hours about the Camino, our lives, families, in a way that indicates that in a day or so, we’ll ... read more

We are sleeping in later this holiday. There is no rush to get off to swim or to go to work. We can set the alarm, switch it off and ignore it. There is no overriding need to be anywhere. It is more a holiday of tootling about from place to place with no particular place to be. We can change plans by the day, by the hour and even by the minute. We dont worry if we miss things. It is not the end of the world. We can take our time . Astorga our destination today is just two hours away and we should be there for lunchtime . In time for a menu del dia - perhaps the first paella of the trip. Why Astorga? We are heading to see a different type ... read more

It's early and I'm listening to the 3 Tenors; John above, Rollo, a spanish guy to my left, and Toby, a young German above him. It's 6am, alarm is set for 6.30, but I'd get up now except it's a bit early. I've been awake for a while. I say if you don't like the noise, get a private room. It's all part of the 'experience '. Today is about 24 kms and pretty flat from memory. A bit of breakfast here first would be good, otherwise I will attack my little stash in my pack. I'm going to reset the alarm and see if I can get another 1/2 hours sleep in. This is live folks ! OMG, Today we left Ponferrada in the dark, nothing new there, and followed the rio Sil until we ... read more

A friend and I day-tripped to Ponferrada last weekend. It’s over the border from Galicia in Castilla y Leon, but only around a 2-hour train ride from Ourense. The small city itself is along the most popular Camino de Santiago route, the French Route, and when we were there, I was surprised by the numbers of pilgrims. When I say ‘pilgrims’, you might imagine dirty people dressed in rags and leathery, almost-disintegrated shoes, but today’s pilgrims tend to be a cleaner-looking set, generally white, middle-aged people with traveling backpacks and walking sticks. Ponferrada seems to be heavily-reliant on the pilgrim-tourist trade, but not overly so. What was concerning is that we encountered more locals who seemed to be down-and-out. Ponferrada’s main attraction is a castle built by the Knights Templar. I’m still not entirely clear on ... read more

We had a lovely nights sleep and woke up refreshed and ready for the off. Before the other campers were awake we had hit the road . We had loved this site and would use it again. Some of these aires/sostas and stellplatz are wonderful. They can be free or charge a small charge to put your van on them. They have space around you although technically you should not take your chairs out nor your table as that is seen as camping. What we are doing is overnight sleeping in a van. Some have amenities like water and electricity. Most of the time free but again possibly a nominal charge. Some we have found have WiFi and even showers and washrooms. They are hit and miss but they are there if you are happy to ... read more