Camino francés - Page 10

Reliegos - León (ca. 28 km)

It was Alfred's last day on the Camino today. His job was waiting. He was certainly fine with it, because his feet had blood blisters by now. So we went the way in Manzilla de las Mullas we had a hearty breakfast. The route itself was entertaining, but not so beautiful. On the way we overtook the Polish and Jakob, which had started before us. They had a decent pace on it, despite the stroller. Shortly before Leon we would have soon lost Klaus, he ran early always too fast, but became slower in the afternoon and made many breaks. There was no waiting in our group, there were mutually agreed breaks, no others. Klaus always had his own mind, he had walked too long alone, but now wanted to walk with us to Santiago. He caught up with us again and we arrived in León. Jana had procured a cheap pension near the center, since the hostel was a bit outside. But before that we went again to a bar, drink coffee.

In the pension I moved into a double room with Klaus, everything was quite neat here. We lingered only briefly to come to the cathedral but unfortunately it was already closed. So we looked for an internet cafe to print out my plane tickets. After that we went through the bars, each of us always took a round of beer and in addition there is always ham (Jamon) and / or cheese sandwiches for free. Then it went into the next Bar, so one was full at the end. However, it was very expensive in León, so that free is probably not the right term.

In addition, after the many quiet days felt the hustle and bustle in the bars rather loud and unpleasant. Since I no longer pilgrimage alone, have my daily expenses doubled. The permanent bar visits now forced me to calculate my remaining budget every day. But with the three it was fun and so I didn't bitch much. We strolled afterwards still by the very beautiful city center, before it went to the night's rest. I could sleep even relatively well, because Klaus this night by the city noise from outside could not sleep at all. Otherwise he would have kept me awake again with his snoring.

León - Hospital de Órbigo (ca. 32 km)

After a good breakfast in the pension we said goodbye to Alfred, who had to go to the train around noon. Was already a little sad, he had become a good friend to me here. For the summer he invited me to his and Jana's house in Tarragona. It is located directly at the sea, there I must not think long. We three went on our way, first we wanted to see the impressive cathedral from the inside. A truly masterful building with unique mosaic windows, here we also got our stamp for the Credencial.

Then we passed the Gaudi Palace and headed for the luxury San Marco Hotel, which used to be a pilgrim hostel. It took a long time until we were out of Leon. Jana almost hurt herself, she stumbled and fell on the street with her very heavy backpack. But everything was still on it when we hoisted her up, even the glasses were still whole. The weather meant it well with us today, however, went the Camino to Hospital mainly along the road, so was not very relaxing. We overtook Monika, the Polish woman, again and walked a part of the way together. In Hospital de Orbigo, a small town, we shopped, because Bar's had closed here all.

Jana wanted to make omelet in the evening. The hostel, a small monastery was certainly very cozy in the summer, in winter but rather stuffy and cold. A small heater stood in the smelly little dormitory. But there were warm showers and a kitchen. We helped Jana with the cooking and for dinner the Polish girl, Jakob and another Spaniard joined us. All of them contributed something. The Spaniards gave on this day their children presents, it was custom here to buy a ring-shaped cake and each cut out a piece of his choice. Whoever finds a bean in it pays for the cake, whoever finds a little king is prophesied good luck. The Polish woman caught the king, the bean remained missing 🙂. After the meal I used still something the PC here and put me afterwards together with Klaus a few beers in the neck. The others came gradually to it, also a Danish couple, which was already here before us. It was still a cozy evening.