Day 27 Camino de Santiago Aug. 1, Rabanal del Camino

Last night in Astorga was one of those magical travel nights... Beautiful weather, great music, good food, clean surroundings.   I enjoyed the outdoor concert which was really practice for an upcoming concert.

    There are several Caminos, all of them eventually meeting up to form the Camino de Santiago.  Think of the Mississippi River and all of it's tributaries, the Ohio, Missouri, etc, converging at different places.  So now I am also on the Camino Frances though only for a small portion.

      This ermita was in a small town only 4K from Astorga.  The stork in top was the "Rey", as the old caretaker of the church informed me.  He also informed me that in Rabanal, there is a great restaurant called El Refugio.  Can you guess where I just had dinner???  It was as good as he said.

     Took a detour and went to a town called, Castillo de los Polvazares.  It is suppose to be one of the prettiest towns in the area but because it's 1.5k off the trail, no one goes.  I wonder why these towns have such long names.  Why not Phoenix, or Mesa or Yuma??  Imagine the money that the city has to budget for signage???
    Most of the town had green doors and rock + mortar buildings.  Very attractive.  There is always one, however, who begs to be different.  Hey, I'm in the 200's!!  Wow!

The town of El Ganzo has this laid back bar.  I wrangled up to the bar, slammed down my two Euro coins, and said, "Barkeep!  Give me a liter of your best bottled water!"  What a man!  What a man!

    Soon after leaving the Cowboy bar, we left Kansas and started heading up the mountain.  Nothing too strenuous, save a 20 mph wind in the face.  I had thought about taking another day in Astorga and getting my back and knee on the same page, but after looking at a map decided that since the trail paralleled the road, I'd just roll as far as I could.  I rolled the entire 20 K from Astorga to Rabanal.  Back said thanks.  Knee said thanks.
    When you look at this picture what do you see - pine trees?  Make you think of anything special??

It does me!  I think, "Now there's a bathroom with lot's of privacy!"  Betcha you'll never look at a pine tree the same way!

 




The town of Rabanal is very beautiful.  Rock streets and rock buildings.  This dog was very passive, too passive.  Why does he need a chain if he's so passive?

 







This was the first small church, that I've visited that has a huge iron gate inside of it, blocking the entrance.  I found out why.  The altar is gilded in gold.

   This is an albergue that had I known it existed, would have stayed there, but I took the first one I came to and it should be okay.  For 5E, what should I expect??
   Tomorrow is a red day, very steep climb and an equally steep decent...but that's tomorrow.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx