C de Santiago day 17

24th August

Villar de Mazarife to Astorga, about 32km in about 6 hours / give or take a few minutes for pictures and limping down the hills .....

Happy Birthday Joanna Jnr .....

Well KJ had to wake me this morning as we had just 8 people sleeping in the Albergue, spaces for 40, and so it was a very quiet night. No new bed bug bites on KJ so we guess we got them all!

 The Alburgue with virtually no one in it !!

The day was a great walk , really nice, some ups some down bits , the right shin is still sore so the down bits are more like hobbles really. We are now approaching the mountains so the scenery is changing significantly , you are right Gayle , the nice bits are coming up! Glad that I no longer have to look at the same thing for 5 hours of walking , think I am ADHD.

We came across a statue that had been clothed by Pilgrims , they have even given him some food, sun cream, backpack, water etc ....very funny really.

The walk was very quiet today, very few people last night, few on the walk today and few tonight in the Albergue. Maybe we have hit a spot in between groups or maybe it's the end of the busy season for walkers ?

The Albergue tonight is the Municipal one, we tend to avoid these kind as they are not as clean as the private ones, but this one is super clean and we have a room to ourselves. Have done some more washing and we haven't yet visited the Cathedral !

Today's lunch was chips and a bottle of wine, we really know how to do the local thing!

We have found that a lot of people on the walk are German. Talking to a German lady last night she said that a German actor did the walk last year, published a book and it became a best seller at Christmas, hence all the Germans this year!

Tomorrow night is the singing monks ..........

 Sometimes the way markers are very clear ....

 and sometimes people make their own markers !