Martinos to El Burgo Ranero...some boring some surprises

 

After a great traditional Italian dinner at the alburgue last night we left Martinos with some trepidation about accommodations in El Burgo Ranero where we wanted to end up today. There are many peregrinos on the road and at Sahugun the pilgrims from the Madrid route join up. So we left, really at our regular time (7am) and struck out at a fast pace ( for some reason Sharon had a ton of energy, could be the 2 coffees, she doesn't seem to have any problem with the caffeine here or it could be the fact that with eye mask and earplugs in each night she is sleeping extremely well!), saw a beautiful sunrise over the river and then came upon this very incongruent area.

Sunrise on the way to Sahugun.

We crossed a Roman bridge, to a medieval church, around the church were these very avant garde sculptural seating areas, so we thought, very nice rest area for pilgrims.

 

Roman bridge and church at halfway point.

Further on in the yard was a medieval gateway, with two sentries guarding and all the writing was in Latin. Sharon walked up to it and realized that the stone in the centre said, centre of the Camino Frances, we were at the official halfway point. It was before Sahugun which we have been told is the centre. The trouble is that we think with changes over the years of paths,either for political reasons through the ages or because of modernization the centre is probably back about 50 km but that doesn't matter, you just keep walking.

Sharon checking out the gateway???

Stone marker halfway.

At the halfway gate.

We had a great second breakfast in Sahugun the best tortilla yet, then walked mostly beside secondary roads all the way to El Burgo Ranero where we arrived early before 2 pm and got 2 beds in a 3 bed room at Alburgue El Nogal. We had a nice little balcony off our room where we could hang and dry the damp clothes from yesterday, rinse out the dirty clothes from today, and sit in the sun and write the blog.

Rest area and little church for pilgrims.

Been seeing these crocus-like flowers growing out,of rocks and dirt, no one seems to know what

Lunch in Bercianos, the grass on the bare feet feels really good!

We have been so lucky so far with very little rain, the forecast is good for the next few days so we are hoping that our luck will hold out. In Carrion, the other day the forecast was for rain, so we went to the pilgrims shop to pick up a poncho for Blair as he didn't bring a very good rain jacket. We met Dirk (pronounced Deerk) from Germany there pick up some walking sticks, we were himing and hawing whether to buy it and he said, "please buy it so we won't have rain" and so far we haven't :)

Graffiti arrows to show us the way...

 

 

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