El Camino Day 22 (June 16, 2023): Villar de Mazarife to Astorga

/ calleoscope
El Camino: Scenic Photos
El Camino: Wildlife and Domesticated Animals
El Camino: Maps and Distances Hiked

Today’s little stroll took us twenty beautiful miles to Astorga, an amazing city with castles, museums, and locally made chocolate!

From my Strava profile

We embarked on our journey for the day early, hitting the road around 0600. The host of the bed and breakfast was kind enough to leave a small breakfast and some snacks out for us as part of the lodging arrangements.

Early morning and the road ahead . . .

Of special note today was the town of Hospital de Orbigo, renowned for an excellent looking medieval bridge and as a historic stop for pilgrims requiring medical assistance.

Behind us a rather long medieval bridge. Perhaps there was more of a river crossing earlier when the river was larger and there were not so many canals for irrigation of farmland.

The long bridge only spanned a small section of river

Every bridge we crossed seemed to have a nice view of a river, good moments for contemplation

After a nice stop in Hospital de Orbigo it was time to finish the last half of our days hike, only about 11 miles to go!

A few miles before our destination in Astorga, we were afforded wonderful views of the city at this religious monument!

A wonderful view on the last few miles of our hike today

We are always greeted and accompanied by the many sculptures dedicated to pilgrims!

Arriving out our albergue for the night, fittingly named “Albergue My Way,” we were happy to receive a nicely prepared meal and get some laundry done. We took a few moments to do a small walk around the area and check out a nearby Roman archeological site of an ancient bathhouse. The site is notable because of the well-preserved mosaic tile!

A nice structure has been erected over these ruins to protect them from the elements

Amazingly at this site, there is a well-preserved area of Roman mosaic-tile. Incredible to think of this site being used as a bathhouse more than a thousand years ago.

To round our day off, we were treated to some evening thunderstorms. Luckily, our long hike was over. The storm brought some relief from the heat so it was welcome.

Stunning contrast of the stormy clouds rolling over to block the sun

You can see lightning towards the very end around seconds 54-58 *Unfortunately, the frames that showed the lightning were cut out from this video as a result of it being uploaded . . . oh well.

Well goodnight. It was a full day, exhausting, but rewarding. We’ll have a few more pictures of Astorga tomorrow and then continue on with the rest of the trip!

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