Nodge's Travels

Day 24 - Mansillas de las Mulas to León  (Wed 29th May) We'd made the decision not to walk this section as it's largely through the suburbs and industrial parks that surround León. So it felt really very strange not having to get up early and be walking. It was also kind of sad, that in reality we had virtually come to the end of our walking. The walk to Mansilla bus station By 11.30 we'd been whisked by bus into León by the local bus. Incidentally, the buses are really coaches, and the charges are incredibly cheap €1.70 for a 40 minute journey! Make a note please "rip off Britain". Back to so-called civilisation; one of the first things we saw in León were the obscene twin arches of obesity central. This was off-set by going right past the local football stadium with its distinctive floodlights. Can't beat a bit of floodlight porn! Our backpacks were dumped at the bus station left-luggage facility, and we then set about doing our final secti...

Thursday 30th May The updates for yesterday (Mansilla de las Mulas to Leon) and today (Leon to Madrid) will be done tomorrow when I've got better access to WiFi. Currently sitting at Barajas Airport, Madrid waiting for our flight home via Brussels. Boohoo.

Day 22 - Sahagun to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos (Monday 27th May) A short walk today - just 9 miles. The night before we'd heard about someone who had got a very nice "I've completed half the Camino certificate" so we thought it might be nice to try and get one; given that we could only go as far as Leon. After a bit of googling we found out where in Sahagun we could get one and decided that a later start might give us the chance to get one. Off we trundled to the church on the hill, but no, it wasn't open until 11am. To be blunt, we didn't fancy walking in the main heat of the day so decided to crack on. We'd changed our plans to walk a more rural and desolate variant of the Camino going via Calzadilla de los Hermanillos. This meant 6 or so miles through absolutely nothing. The church on the hill - it opens at 11am apparently Walking in the middle of nowhere More of "nowhere", but nice clouds We eventually got to ...

Day 23 - Calzadilla de los Hermanillos to Mansilla de las Mulas Thanks to our decision to walk the more rural route to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos, today was now going to be a longer and more lonesome trek than originally planned. Knowing that we wouldn't hit our first village; and more importantly, coffee stop for nearly eleven miles it had to be an early start. Very early indeed In near darkness, we closed the door of the Casa El Curo behind us and headed out into the chill of a Spanish dawn. We'd treated ourselves to having our packs transported to Mansilla, and so despite the early hour, we had a quite a spring in our step. Not quite "airport speed", but not far off. The cold air helped take our minds off the lingering impact of the previous evening's wine. Schoolboy error on our part! The sun rose beautifully up behind us - beautiful, but not good for progress due the need to photograph it. Backpack free, we bounded along through the intensively...

 Day 22 - Sahagun to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos Due to excessive red wine and over-running international networking with the local ambassadors for Geordieland and Ecosse, today's update won't be available until tomorrow (Tuesday 28th May) Any complaints, please contact CateNorridge@aol.com

Day 21 - Calzadilla de la Cuerza to Sahagun (Sun 26 May 2019) Well, loathe as I am to come across as Captain smugpants; we've had a wonderful day! A relatively long stretch of 22 km felt like a breeze - not because we are some kind of wondrously fit gym bunnies, but because we've had a really sociable day talking with so many great people. Particularly whilst we walked. It is kind of understandable, but equally daft that the walking is so much easier if you're engrossed in conversation with people you've never or barely met before. Well today we really felt like we were part of the Camino Circus that rolls into the small towns and villages across northern Spain; and in the blink of an eye is gone again. First stop for coffee and breakfast was Ledigos. We'd walked there with a charming English woman called Sian - quite a character for her years; but charming, intelligent and fun. Whilst having a coffee a couple of notable incidents occurred. First a couple ...

Day 20 Carrion de los Condes to Calzadilla de la Cueza  (Sat 25 May) Today's relatively short walk of 11 miles can best be described as being like a Belgian. No obvious features and pretty damn boring! Leaving Carrion de los Condes We left Carrion de los Condes pretty late (9am) as we knew we hadn't got that far to go, and that we couldn't get into our Hostal in Calzadilla until 3.30. It felt almost shameful to be sitting having coffee and pan au chocolat surrounded by people who'd already walked about 4 miles. We hooked up with a nice German lady who was walking on her own. She seemed to think her English was very poor - it wasn't the best, but we still had a fine conversation. She also helped me to remember 2 German words that I hear a lot and can never remember, genau = exactly; and moeglich* = possible. *I can't work out how to do umlauts on this blasted laptop!! Never a truer word said - even though my "Temple" is indeed a larg...

Day 19 – Fromista to Carrion de los Condes After yesterday’s long 17 miler today’s 13 miles would be a breeze? Well that’s how the mind can play tricks on you. You start to think it’s easy; but it’s still a good distance, and it comes directly on the back of yesterday’s long hard yards. So with all that in mind we tried hard to prepare for a deceptively tough day. And in the end it was. We took 3 decent breaks along the way at Poblacion de Campos, Villovieco and Ermita de la Virgin del Rio; but the final 4 miles were absolutely knackering, and a long the side of a road. Boring. Nevertheless, looking for positives, we were grateful that we had not followed the official Camino route which was virtually along that road the whole way. So at Poblacion de Campos we’d chosen a more rural and lengthy route following the Rio Ucieza. The Rio Ucieza - no frogs in sight, but you could hear them We were discussing the amazing noise frogs make, when we met an English ...