Camino de Santiago – Day 21
Walked from: Cacabelos
Walked to: Ambasmestas
Date: 23 October 2017
Distance: 25km

It’s got seriously beautiful since I hit the hills. I really enjoyed the dustiness of the Meseta, but how wonderful it is to be surrounded by green again.

I’m definitely a country girl when I’m out walking, zipping through towns – including today’s handsome looking Villafranca del Bierzo… although, after the past few days of sampling the local wine and walking through their beautiful vineyards, there will always be a special place in my heart for the local Bierzo red wine 🙂

Still, I paused in Villafranca long enough to have breakfast and choose my route option out of town, and I am so glad I took one of the paths less travelled. After my first life-enhancing 10km, walking alone through wine country as the sun rose, my second 10km was even better – alone on the mountain route to Pradela following the conker-strewn mountainside path with a backdrop of bright, clear skies and incredible green-hued, sunlit hillside in all directions.

I came off the mountain at the village of Trabadelo and after all that tranquility I was pretty horrified by having to follow a road though the villages that line the route on the way to Galicia. Which is why, when I popped into the tiny but perfectly-formed Hotel Camynos (run by the lovely Javier) for a light lunch, I decided to spring for the €35 to have a beautiful room all to myself for the night. And an afternoon nap I suddenly seemed much in need of. And a truly delicious dinner of local home cooked food. I was the only guest – Javier explained that he’ll be closing down for the season at the weekend, and opening back up again in the spring. How lucky I was to spend the night there.