Rest Day in Puebla de Sanabria

Well, almost a rest day. We had a very beautiful 13 km stroll from our last night's resting place. The terrain is changing, we are now walking through much more wooded areas, lots of streams (and muddy paths to navigate), and the architecture is now the typical northern Spain construction of big stones, slate roofs, and wooden balconies. No more orange terra cotta round roof tiles in sight. We have been through a lot of little towns with many beautiful homes in ruins, and now here we are in a big tourist town with lots of beautiful homes that have been redone. I think that today in our walk we passed through 6 towns and saw a total of fewer than ten people. But all that changed when we crossed the river and arrived in Puebla de Sanabria. We are staying in the Posada La Pascasia, http://www.lapascasia.com/, right on the main drag and with a great view to the river below. The old town has almost entirely old stone houses, lots of flowers on the balconies, and today is market day. There is a romanesque church that is very beautiful, and tonight it will be open for us to peek inside.

It seems like there can't be a Camino without some kind of construction. This time it's not highway construction we're running into, but construction of the high speed train the AVE, which will go from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela. It hasn't been too bad, but the people in charge obviously care nothing about peregrinos, and we are sent looping up and down, around and back, just to keep us out of the way of their heavy machinery. Not that I want a run-in with a steam roller, but there have got to be better paths they could send us on.

We are off to check in to our little posada, will visit the castle and the museum this afternoon, and buy food for the next few days. And of course the clothes washing routine, something we've grown quite fond of. To top it all off, a good meal perhaps, there seem to be a lot of organic restaurants in this place for some reason. And lots of tourists to make sure the prices are high, but it's a splurge day.