Day 17 - Fromista to Carrion de Los Condes - 12.5 miles

Today was by far the coldest day so far on the Camino. I started off at 6am with my running jacket and my hands were in the little cover-ups at the wrists. That only helped a little as the poles are metal and were still extremely cold. I ended up stopping after about 1/2 an hour to put my windbreaker on as well and was still cold! It was also Sunday, so absolutely nothing was open for a warming coffee (even at 8am) as I walked through the two small towns. The path split after the first small town, and you could either go right and remain next to the river (the route I chose, which also added an additional .5 mile) or go left and parallel the road.

Both paths reunited in the town of Villscazar de Sirga. The town became a commandery of the Knights Templar and the Templar church of Santa Maria La Virgin Bianca is a national monument. Unfortunately, the church was not open to view at that time. The only person out about town was the pilgrim across from the church (in the photo below).

Carrión de los Condes (loosely translated as Dead Animal flesh of the Count) is a very interesting little town. They have an amazing outdoor gear store for the pilgrims (which made a killing today on gloves and heavier jackets for freezing pilgrims!). They also have two extremely good restaurants. I ate at one with T from Canada, and they sat us with a British man who owns a house in Italy! One of the things I find amazing on the Camino is how people from all over the world will meet and start talking and find out how much they have in common! This man's son is living in the same part of Vancouver as T. His house in Italy is quite near our favorite beach town, and we shared all sorts of humorous Italy stories. The world is very small.

Every time I visit s new country, one of the first things I do is walk through a grocery store. I love looking at all the specialty foods from other places. Here I kept seeing these jars of tiny whiteish worm looking things filling a glass jar near all the seafood items. Tonight the restaurant had caramelized artichokes on the menu with those whiteish things on top. Our British friend ordered them and thought they might be river eels. I tried them and the artichokes were delicious (the eels basically had the texture of spaghetti on top with no discernible taste.). I'm not sure how they are traditionally used here (and they were very unappetizing looking in the jar), but this was very good.

Mural on the Hermitage wall

Description of the Hermitage

Today and the next three days of my walk are short days before Leon on Friday.