Itero to Carrion de los Condes

Itero to Carrion de los Condes 

Our Albergue in Itero. Now one of the annoying things about traveling the way we are is that people like to get up at various early times. On the Camino it isn't unusual to have some rustling around at 5:30 in the morning with a headlamp on trying to leave. In one Albergue the girl beside me was from Brazil. The night before she had put all her stuff in her ziplock bags. She got up at 5:30 and started packing them in her backpack all the time moving around with her damn light whipping around and shining onto my bed. Then she sat on her bed until 7. I could have throttled her. Most of the time people are quiet and thoughtful and earplugs work great. Anyways Roz and I had a taxi coming at 9:30 to take us to the train station in Fromista so we were in no hurry to get up. Our room was totally dark, which is unusual, and at 6:45 a Japanese girl got up went to the bathroom and went back to bed. No one even moved until 7:15. It was so weird.

Roz and I took a taxi to Fromista where we were catching a train off the Camino to a city called Palencia. We had several hours to wait and it was cold. So we covered up with our rain ponchos. We always complained that they were too hot.

Train station. 

On the train. One thing about the trains in Spain is that there is a great big step to get on and off plus a big space between you and the platform. Amazing some little old Spanish lady doesn't fall through the hole.

Saw this beautiful sculpture in the roundabout in Palencia.

So on the outskirts of Palencia there is a statue called Christ de Otero. It was built in 1931 in a simple geometric post-cubist style. It is 30 meters high, second in height to the one in Rio de Janero. The sculptor is buried in the hermitage below the statue. Needless to say you can see it from most parts of the city.

We cabbed it from the train station to the dentist and waited for about an hour. Roz went in to discover she had broken the tooth off at the gum line and a cut in the gum was what was causing the discomfort. They xrayed it and checked for infection then cleaned it up and sealed it so it is good until she gets home. Total time in the chair under 30 minutes. Cost 20 euros. It cost us way more than that to just get there. Roz's husband Wes found out the price and said get it fixed there but it was something that would take several days and Palencia was not on our Camino.

So we hiked back to the train station  to find the bus depot. We had about a 4 hour wait. This is us celebrating the fix and having food as our sights had been on the dentist not food so we were hungry.

The bus station. We had decided we could move further down the Camino path or we could bus it back close to where we left it so we bused to our next bed reservation in Carrion de los Condes. It was a national holiday the next day so we had to get there that night or we were stuck in Palencia as no trains or buses etc ran on the holiday.

We booked another night at a little hostel with our own room. Real towels and beds and sheets. And our own bathroom. Of course Roz has this knack for finding us places right next to churches. This the view from our window. The front of the church.

This Albergue had a restaurant and, as we had missed the Pilgrims meal, we ordered off the menu. We met up with a couple from New Zealand that we had met at a previous albergue and had a wonderful  meal. This was a salad we each had after sharing a plate of grilled veggies. It was so delicious.

So we stayed one night in this room and then switched rooms for another night

 Roz was in heaven as I got up to go to mass with the nuns and she cozied up in bed. I of course took a tour of town. I love the feel of walking without  a backpack on, in my sandals. It's the small things that bring pleasure.

This is a wall behind the church amd they have obviously built right into it. See the window.

And a door.

The monastery where I went to mass.

Another monastery founded in the 13th century.

Again the huge baroque alter designs in the monastery.

This was inside the church across from us.

October 12th was a national holiday and  Christopher Colombus day. There was a parade in town that we watched while I drank a cafe con leche.

They marched to the church, had mass and then came outside and sang some songs.

Just down from our Albergue.

A sign someone left at the base of the statue.

Garlic soup off the restaurant lunch menu. It is delicious. We had the Pilgrims meal that night and it was very poor. Too bad because it is an excellent restaurant.

There are three monasteries in Carrion de los Condes with nuns activity. Most of the nuns are elderly but this order has younger nuns and is growing.

Pilgrims know them as the singing nuns and you can stay at their albergue but everyone is welcome. It is a fun hour of welcoming and sharing. They encourage people to sing songs from their country so we sang happy birthday in English, Hungarian, Spanish and Korean. Also, who would have thought we would be singing John Denver's Country Roads in the middle of Spain.

Tomorrow we head for Ledigos.

Almost Half way!!!