Cacabelos to Trebedelos

DAY 30: WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2017

Back on the road again. We met a large group from Indiana. This is Frank and Jim who is a professor of Medieval History at Indiana University. I bet he checked out the castle in Ponferrada.

Terry loves to show pilgrims the religious procession they missed in Astorga.

Today’s trail takes us through a vineyard and under a crackling power line.

We stopped in a little village called Valtuille de Arriba that had a pleasant garden with a pleasant cat.

Ricardo made us coffee and tea and we couldn’t resist having a plate of olives. He gave each of us a small rock called, Jacinto de Compostela. He said the rocks were 150 million years old.

Terry talked gardening with Ricardo’s wife, Estella. She has some amazing plants and cacti.

These cactus only bloom one day per year. We happened to be there on the day they were in full bloom.

Such a pleasant place to stop, It was hard to leave but we had a long way to go.

This village looked like it was 150 million years old. Very small doorways. Most of the roofs are made of slate.

This looks like some type of olive or wine press.

We think people are still living in these dwellings.

This is a group from Southern England. The guy on the far right is Peg Leg. He is missing half a leg and yet he is doing the Camino. He walks part of the way, sometimes rides in his chair pumping it with his arms and sometimes glides down the hill in the chair controlling the brake.

It was a fun walk into Villafranca del Bierzo with our new friends from Indiana and Southern England.

We found a Quilt Shop with an enthusiastic quilter named Elena. Quilting is not very popular in Spain yet but she enjoys teaching it. Terry was impressed that she had a 1951 Singer Featherweight sewing machine.

Villafranca del Bierzo has a very large castle and huge walls that surround it.

For lunch we had scrambled eggs with mushrooms and grilled meat.

Beautiful gardens in Villafranca. Everything shuts down at about 2pm. Time to move on to Trabedelos.

Here is our stop for tonight … Trabedelos.

This is the dining room of our Hostel. We had the Pilgrim’s meal which was a massive salad, a massive plate of spaghetti followed by pork chops and flan. We were joined by Brian, whom we had met in Cacabelos and his wife Diane both from Portland, Oregon.