Day 16: Castrojeriz to Frómista (Wendy)

Started today a bit later, as we had breakfast at the albergue and nice weather ahead. On the road by 7:30, walking in the dark for a km or so through the streets of Castrojeriz, which  looked like a ghost town set for a Western. 

The beauty of the Meseta did not disappoint and it was a gorgeous day for walking, sunny but not brutally so, with temps in the mid-50’s most of the day. We climbed up one or two high plateaus, walked past fields of green, brown, and gold, and even had another lovely walk along a river and a canal that had a pleasure boat slowly cruising up and down. For early October, the Camino was surprisingly crowded today and we walked for much of the day with many peregrinos ahead and behind.

As I may have mentioned before, I walked the first week or so without listening to anything, but recently have started spending some of the day listening to music and occasionally an audiobook. Today was primarily Bach (Goldberg variations and some sonatas and partitas). I’ve also found that the soundtrack to The Bear is surprisingly good afternoon walking music, when I need a little more energy, though I had to skip some of the screamy songs by Refused.

We are staying in a hostel/hotel (not peregrino albergue) tonight. Great room with the holy grail I’ve been searching for for over a week: a bathtub! It’s about half the size of our tub at home, but I managed to take a decent epsom salt bath and finally soak my knees, which are slowly healing.

Searching around for a place to grab a snack, since we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, I discovered a very nice restaurant right across the street that advertised they had gluten-free bread. Open only for lunch until 6:00, they specialize in local food, especially local lamb roasted in a wood-burning oven. We high-tailed it over there and ate for the first time like I think the Spaniards do, consuming our big meal in the middle of the day. It was by far the most expensive meal we’ve eaten here and muy deliciosa!