Day 2 in Spain - Astorga and Cacabelos

Thursday May 16

After not having slept at all in the plane from Tuesday to Wednesday I slept great and long from Wednesday to Thursday. It was time though to go to breakfast cross the street which was included in our room price. On the left in this picture you can see why our hotel was called 'el Castille' . No idea about the rest of the story though. The breakfast was strange and the place more like a bar. We were offered a juice, cup of coffee and a choice of one of the things wrapped up in plastic looking more like a twinky. I only had a juice and we both had hot tea. There were also fresh looking sandwiches behind glass and Ute was willing to pay the difference. But the young man behind the bar said she could have one if we would not ask for anything else. Ute liked it and was happy.

Then we were on our way. We enjoyed the drive very much. Most of highway seemed new. There was not much traffic and the landscape was so nice to look at. I had brought the GPS into which I typed the name of the town we wanted to go to and a map of northern spain which showed the camino as a green line.

I think we crossed the camino several times. We tried to think where James had walked.

A lot of the land around us looked natural and unused. We even saw mountains with snow on top. Yellow ginster and white blooming bushes left and right and several hills totally covered in pinkish bushes. Just lovely.

We texted with James and since it looked like we might be at our destination before the 'pilgrims' ute and I decided to stop for a lunch snack on the way in Astorga. When we had left the highway we could see it in a hill with a impressive church from afar and were excited. You can see where we parked on the left and then we walked to the right.

I was surprised when I had found this was a place I had read about in James' blog. Like James we did not buy tickets and go in but here is a link to more info

The museum was right next to a big church which unfortunately was closed.

So we went right next to it into a cafe which was very nice. No English menu but we both managed to get something we liked. I had something like filled peppers. The taste was great and I wiped the bowl clean with the bread.

This is the very narrow street I had to drive thru later to get back on our way.

It was right next to the camino. You can see the sign.

After about one more hour we found James.

Our parked car is on the left and his albergue on the right way back on the grounds of the church. He showed me his bed. OMG I hope he shows it to you in his blog. The three of us walked to an cafe were we also met Werner and Josef (sorry no photo). Then the three of us went to find a 'hostal' for Ute and me. We found a nice place where we left Ute. James and I got the car and then the luggage to the room.

Since the peregrines go to bed early we decided to go to dinner early. By chance we found Werner and Josef again and the five of us had dinner together which was a lot of fun. Sorry forgot about photos again. But here is a typical peregrine menu: 3 courses and wine included.

After that it was time to say good night but first I had to make this video for William who misses Grandpa. I already got a message from Helen that the video interrupted William's favorite Kipper on apple-TV and William loved it.

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If you want to go to "Day 3" click here.

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