Ilwempe

We leave the wonderful town of Toro and head for Neil's stage 3 end at Zamora Neil on the bridge as we cross the mighty Duero river with Toro in background. Long first stage but nice to spend time walking along the river.  Sometimes track is more a suggestion.  Like, a tractor driver through here in 2012 so should be ok. Dead fox in the middle of the road.  This is irrigation country as its close to the river.  Lots of canals everywhere.  We actually found Eeyores house. Eeyore wasn't too be found.  I understand he's feeling a bit down.  Finally the bridge into Zamora. It's been a tough day for me.  36kms pushed my knees I've grown very fond of this symbol which is the symbol for the peregrino paths to Santiago de Compostela Zamora is a stunning town.  Looks pretty wealthy.  They like to get the plane trees to link together to make shade structure in the squares. Zamora street I have taken 26 photos of this god ugly head trying to get my...

We leave the the town that won't miss us.  We soon learn that there are no way marks after town exit and it gets very confusing.   Where the hell are we? Which is our road?  Eventually we pull out my phone compass and decide to walk through paddocks.  Then we get out GPS and follow dots as the map doesn't come up. Eventually we find the sign to our next town Castronuño. Also bump into a friendly couple who show us a short cut to town.   Strange one town seems to have no pulse and the next live to see and welcome perigrinos. After a nice morning tea and pastry pigout we head on and hit the Duero river.   Walking along the Duero river is peaceful with many beautiful trees including plantings.  Lots of irrigation here.  The poppies always brighten things up.  After another confusing set of easy markings we get into Toro. I was suggesting missing this town.  What was I thinking?  It's the most interesting town I've seen h...

Well after the most amazing dinner in Medina del Campo last night it seems only fitting that our tostada is bigger than Ben Hur. A little square as we leave.  I love the fact that the streets go everywhere in Spain and all of these unusual spaces are created.  They make for interesting cities and towns.  Never predictable and always evocative.  As we leave town the landscape opens up. It's an amazing experience to leave a town on foot.  The change from city,  to residential,  to town support,  to edge off town spaces and then eventually the rural.  The ubiquitous church end claims the skyline.  The track at times is vague but there's worse things than getting lost in flowers.  Or trees Or more flowers Or vineyards Stop at this town for a great morning tea. I love this simple existence.  Walk,  eat and drink, walk eat and drink,  sleep.  REPEAT DAILY TILL SYMPTOMS DISAPPEAR. Finally arrive in Siete Iglesias. A kin...

Leaving Arevalo we walked past the old town being refurbished.  There are many places where this is happening in Spain. It was a long day's walk and often the roads seemed to go forever but flowers are never far away.  One of the highlights of the day was meeting a man from the last town of the day.  He was out for a walk.  When he met us he turned around and returned to the village with us.  Chatting away was fun.  It was of course hard to understand each other but it's surprising what you do pick up.  Neil asked him if he wanted to keep walking with us to Santiago. (Everyone knows what we ste doing and where we're headed)   When Andreas and Luis walked through the town behind us, they met him too and he told them he had decided to walk the Camino. Long stretches Neil didn't need to walk over this bridge but I asked him to yo make the blog more interesting.  We had the best meal I've had since being in Spain. We got Andres and Luis to e...

30 May 2018 Tinosillos Day 2 walking  through Spanish countryside and finally after 26kms found something open for breakfast. Amazingly for me I set up this blog  having a cafe con leche. Nothing opens before ten.  It's such a fun way to spend the day.  I've learnt that every bar has a tortilla on the counter so always possible to tuck into that. This is the bar in the town.  Probably not that interesting but gee I'm just trying to figure out how this works on a phone.  For me that's advanced.

Started my walk with Neil today from Avila. This is the place where Teresa of Avila better known as Santa Teresa lived.   We walked 25km to get me in the mood. Some of Neil's days have been 42km. I hope I don't do that.  Fantastic walking through the countryside following yellow arrows. I'm a bit stiff but another 10 days to go. Neil's already done 740km. He's bloody mad.  At the end of the day we get to this little town Gotarrendura We're told nothing will be open today. Who needs to eat anyway.  Then the guy in the town who holds the keys for the albergue decides he'll take us for a tour of the town.  It turns out this little town is actually where Santa Teresa was born and not only that there's a chook shed (dove shed to be more accurate where 700 doves perched) at the bottom of the garden where she was born. It's been there four over 500 years and Teresa used to collect the eggs there as a kiddy. How nifty is that.  The chook shed (Dovecoat) The ...