Day 17 – Hornillos del Camino to Castrojeriz

It feels as though, over the last few days, the focus has shifted from the majestic scenery we had in the first fortnight to old and, in some cases, historic villages that are sustained by the camino and its peregrinos. Todays equation – three villages separated by about 10kms with the bars, cafes and restaurants full of walkers with a smattering of locals and little in between – looks like being repeated over the next several days.

Last night was our first communal dinner and breakfast – not a bad thing as we got to talk to a few more fellow walkers. The main downside was that we had to fit in with the majority preference for breakfast, 7:00am. Just now, the sun is only coming up at 8:00am so 7:00am felt a bit enthusiastic, especially since we only had 20km to walk today. We pushed it out a bit to 7:20am but nevertheless we were back at Hornillos and walking by just after 8am.

The first hour was spent in shade as we climbed up to the meseta (translation: plateau) and from there very nice paths as the sun rose and we made our way to the one intermediate town, Hontanas, about 10.5kms from our start. The air and ground was still cool as we took an extended break but got warm shortly after we left the village.

The paths had been good up to Hontanas but the first few kms out of that village were quite difficult due to very large stones on the track. We’ve learnt that size really does matter on the camino – anything less than 5mm is perfect, 5 to 10mm pretty good, 10 to 20mm getting a bit tough and more that 20mm very tough on soles and ankles!

After about and hour, we came down from the goat track out of Hontanas and shortly after stopped at the ruins of the Convento de San Anton. A couple of kms after that we were into Castrojeriz, which is a long thin town. The camino takes you along the upper part of the village and i have to say we were very happy to stumble across, and into, a pizza restaurante – el Fuera. Where we had lunch before going to our accommodation for tonight.

20km today for a total of 322km so far – route video here.