Along the Camino.....

The journey to Castrojeriz was eventful in as much as travelling along the roads we were buffeted by very strong gusty winds, we felt that the wind would get under van and blow us right off the road! The whole of Northern Spain was battered by storms and we wondered how one couple we met at Hora were getting on - they were sailing from Santander that day and had a large caravan - not a good day for towing or sailing across the Bay of Biscay. We hope they made it ok and weren't seasick!

The town of Castrojeriz is dominated by the massive remains of the medieval castle perched on the hilltop and the beautiful old churches which line the route through the town for the pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, the medieval pilgrim route from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in the North-west of Spain where tradition has it the remains of the Apostle James are buried. Over a quarter of a million people walk the route every year either as a tourist or as a religious pilgrim. My friend Bridget walked the Camino with her cousin a few years back, all 500 miles from the Pyrenees, it was quite an experience and a wonderful achievement, she is still in touch with some of the people they met along the way.

The campsite where we were staying is right on the Camino and has cabins and camping for the pilgrims, it also has a very good and reasonably priced restaurant which we sampled on two occasions during our stay. We like it there because it is a small family run site - Roberto, the son, speaks good English and checks all the campers in, waits on table and is general dogsbody, Mama works in the kitchen and makes delicious Paella or roast lamb and Gabriel the Dad sits about and tells everyone what to do! Whilst we were there pilgrims of many nationalities arrived to stay overnight including Russians, Americans, French and Japanese, we also met a couple who were there to administer first aid to the footsore travellers.

Another reason we like Camping Camino is for the wonderful roads in the area for cycling, over the few days we were there we ventured out to a few of the villages and towns in the area. The area is mainly flat grassland, wide open spaces mostly turned over to cereal crops or sunflowers, their faces once following the sun now dipped down as they die off ready for harvest. The few hills are all crowned with Wind Turbines and add interest to the flat landscape.

The villages are quiet and sleepy, few people to be seen and not many places to be found for a coffee and cake - our favourite stop enroute! Even the tiniest of villages has a massive church.

The roads are wide and smooth with very little traffic, we got the impression it is a very underpopulated area compared to south of England where we come from, a real joy to cycle around.

Having endured some rather low temperatures whilst staying at Castrojerez - the temperature dropped below 10*c and we even had to wear our cycling tights and gloves on our first day! So we planned our next stay on a campsite to the east of Madrid in a town called Arganda del rey, hoping for hotter weather and our next Via Verde cycle route.

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