Author: Thom

During the descent into the Valley of El Bierzo, we ran into Billy again. Remember Billy? We hadn’t seen him in ages. Truly, the Camino is a small world, despite its size. Here you see Billy leading Stijn and Francine down the slippery slope. Beautiful view and great weather. Still no breakfast, though. Date: 23 April 2016 Place: Between Riego […]

Normally when the Camino crosses a stream, there’s a bridge. Or at least stepping stones. Not here. In the photo, you can see Stijn gingerly making his way across, but we all had to do it. At least it wasn’t at flood stage like many places earlier on our Camino. Sorry about the blurry quality. Many of this morning’s photos […]

The next morning, after a bitterly cold night, we left town without breakfast – absolutely nothing in this eerily empty town was open. The road out of Riego de Ambrós begins with this scramble downhill on what appears to be exposed granite. It’s slippery when wet. In fact, I was a little woozy from a bad sleep and no food, […]

As mentioned in previous days, the buildings lining the empty streets of Riego de Ambrós all look newly built or refurbished. It’s a ghost village, immaculately kept. Just keeping the hanging baskets watered on all of the empty houses is probably a full-time position. It seems like a lovely place, and I wonder if it’s nothing but summer houses. Date: […]

As I mentioned yesterday, Riego de Ambrós is a most peculiar village. Every building looks newly built or refurbished, all in the local traditional style. And yet, the streets are empty. The houses are shuttered. Nobody seems to live here. We counted five locals in a village that could easily house hundreds. Date: 22 April 2016 Place: Riego de Ambrós […]

The village of Riego de Ambrós sprawls along the Camino. It’s neat and tidy and not small by any stretch, but the whole time we were there, we only saw five people other than pilgrims. It was so unusual, I actually enumerated the entire population in my journal: the hospitalera the waiter at the bar (also the same guy who […]

The Camino between El Acebo and Riego de Ambrós follows an old blacktop road. In my book, any distance you walk on asphalt feels like double the same distance walked on dirt, so we typically walk beside the road if we can. The view was tremendous and the weather was fine. I’m not sure why we were so reluctant to […]

The Camino has more than its share of graffiti. Some is poetic. Some is artistic. Some is just plain incomprehensible. Most of it, though, is encouraging. You got this! Date: 22 April 2016 Place: Between El Acebo and Riego de Ambrós (Castilla y León, Spain) Today’s map!

As we leave El Acebo, the Camino has a wacky jog through some local roads. This was the sight that greeted us. In the distance, you can see the valley of El Bierzo and the mountains and blue skies beyond. In any other year, we would be approaching the rainy portion of our Camino. This year, though, the worst of […]

We had a lovely late lunch in El Acebo. We ran into Rebecca again; she had injured her knee coming down the goat path and had called it a day here. Francine and I discussed options for the night and took the least-bad option of staggering another 5km to Riego. This region of Spain shows its Catholicism more than some […]