LEON – SAN MARTIN DEL CAMINO

13 APRIL

26.0km

After last night’s celebrations, it was now very quiet in the streets of Leon as we’ve left our albergue. Once again, we needed to concentrate on the Camino arrows to find our way out of Leon – fortunately we were a group and together we were able to leave Leon behind without too much difficulty.

The streets of Leon in the early morning

The Parador Hotel which featured in the movie The Way. We saw some pilgrims leaving the hotel – they must have had a good night’s sleep 😊

We’ve taken the alternative route, which is not the most scenic one, but we’ve decided to overnight in San Martin del Camino and therefor had to take this road.

We saw these “hobbit houses” outside Leon – Raul (our Spanish pilgrim friend) said they might be use to store wine, called “bodegas” … or something else 😃 … anyway, it was cute!

I must admit that I did not really remembered the detail of this road. Instead of looking around and take photo’s, we’ve spent much of our time chatting to each other. We’ve had some serious conversations about how each of us approaches life. It was also of great value to hear how everyone handles obstacles that crosses their paths … we can learn so much from one another.

Lesson learned: Make time to listen to people – this may add value to your life

Many stork nests on top of the bell tower

It was another hot day and we’ve tried not to waste too much time by stopping somewhere on the road, but rather pushed on to get to San Martin del Camino. It was also a quiet day as it was a public holiday before Easter weekend commence. We’ve enjoyed the calmness after the busy city of Leon and were looking forward to more days like these.

It was now under 300km to Santiago … the yellow arrow indicates that we were still on the right track

San Martin del Camino is a very small town and with one main road going through the town, it was very easy to find our albergue, La Casa Verde. It was also painted in a bright green color!

Our “hospitalerio” (hostess of the albergue) was very friendly and allocated one big room to all of us – we were after all a Camino family. She also offered to prepare dinner for us for which we were very thankful. We’ve bought some fruit at the small local shop around the corner and made a big bowl of fruit salad for desert.

Me, Gloria and Javier busy making fruit salad

We’ve spent the rest of the afternoon, doing laundry and just sitting in the back garden and enjoyed each other’s company.

The dinner prepared by our “hospitalerio” was very tasty and we’ve had a good time around the table. We’ve chatted until late that evening while drinking some wine. A wonderful way to end our day on the Camino.

Pre-snacks on the table … jamon, cheese and bread. And a real tasty meal: chicken, salad and (more) bread

Our Camino family: Me and Berto with Javier, Gloria, Raul, his 2 children (Diego & Gabriella) and Monica