That’s the second time we’ve stayed there – it’s a lovely hotel, white, bright and airy, two large single beds pushed together, large bathroom with a bath – cue childish screams of joy.

Astorga is a nice town, great lavandería and a pharmacist who dispensed compeed blister plasters at ‘only’ 1€ per blister. But worth every cent.

Unfortunately all the restaurants opened their doors at 8:30 or later so we were forced to make use of the Irish bar across the road which thankfully dispensed food all day. Pasta with mushrooms was sufficient to keep hunger at bay (plus two glasses of vino tinto each).

The relatively short leg (25.8 km) from Astorga to Foncebadón was despatched with ease. We stopped for our first coffee whilst still within the city’s limits and our second and third only a few km further on.

I paid for these coffees with yet another migraine aura, sans headache. I can only assume that coffee provides some sort of trigger – cancel all coffee for the next six months and we’ll see if they disappear. (Plaintively) but I like coffee 😢.

… where we stopped for lunch and had a peaceful hour or so watching the passing traffic.

We left Rabanal and promptly found ourselves completely alone on the trail. This has been the story of the Camino so far. It seems that everyone finishes around two o’clock; they head off to their accommodation for the night, grab a shower and some food before settling down to an early night. Dorothy and I on the other hand continue plodding on for another two or three hours in absolute peace and tranquillity. The sky is blue, there’s hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature is in the high teens. It’s glorious walking weather, so why stop.

Our hostal is great, the room is clean with two single beds buttered (sic) up against each other. The shower is fantastic and we’ll head off shortly to hunt for dinner. Haven’t paid my respects to the local stork yet but I assume that he, or is it she, will undoubtedly be atop the local church tower.

Buen camino

(Sigh) yet another addendum: we’ve booked our flights home. Following the Gronze.com schedule will see us get to Santiago on Thursday afternoon. We’ll be at least a day quicker so we’ve booked our flights home with Ryanair for Friday morning. That’ll give us time to have at least one day in Santiago inspecting incoming pilgrims and looking for Clifford et al. We’ve recently seen pilgrims from ‘our’ wave so I have hope that Clifford will turn up before we head for home. I suspect that he and the Brazilian will have traveled together throughout, egging each other on despite the inevitable blisters and aching limbs. It would be lovely to welcome them in. There’s a bar next to the route that every pilgrim on the Frances takes as they approach the cathedral. Dorothy and I will station ourselves there and fingers crossed we’ll see them pass by.