30 September 2017
Walking Day 18:
20 kilometers
27,275 steps

The weather today was almost perfect for walking – very slightly cooler than yesterday, and expected to be cloudy almost all day. Sahagún is the halfway point on the Camino Frances. I met Jeff and Tracy from Minnesota at their hotel after breakfast. I told them that I had learned of an old church, now a museum close to where the Camino route from Madrid meets the Camino Frances just south of where we will cross the bridge over the Cea River as we leave Sahagún. The museum offers a very nice and almost elaborate certificate of having walked half way. If the museum was open, it would be a nice certificate to get. So we went in search of the museum at the Iglesia Señora de Peregrina. Here I am standing there after we found it:

Unfortunately, the museum would not open until 10:30 AM, and we were there before 9:00. While the certificate would be a nice souvenir, waiting for over 90 minutes for a certificate of completing half the Camino Frances did not seem important; a certificate of having completed the whole walk from the Pilgrim’s office in Santiago de Compostela will be better, and obviously, the whole includes the first half. So we set off back to the Camino Frances and the Sahagún city arch.

Compared to the various city arches we have seen, this is much larger and more elaborate than most, including that at Burgos. After many pictures, we headed for the old Roman one-lane bridge over the Rio Cea to leave Sahagún.

This is a well-used bridge on the thoroughfare in and out of western side of Sahagún. Because it is one-lane, traffic on the bridge is controlled by a signal allowing one direction at a time to cross. I like this bridge, it has a very nice character and look. Here I am again at the monument by the bridge, very psyched for another day of walking on the meseta on the Camino de Santiago:

The terrain today is very flat, and very typical of the meseta. Although today’s Camino path parallels the infamous highway N-120 part of the day, this is not nearly as busy a part of the N-120 that we saw off and on several days earlier before Burgos, and thus not as bothersome.

Here I am again at a railroad overpass. I think I had my picture taken at this exact spot a year and a half ago when I walked the Camino Frances in the springtime. This is a moderately-high-speed rail line connecting Madrid to León and maybe Santiago, but we saw no trains today.

This part of the meseta is flat with expansive farmland, mostly wheat, on both sides of the Camino path and today, the highway. In this photo, the rail line is still close to us as we make our way roughly parallel, on our way to León also.

Soon the rail line disappears, and the N-120 highway turns away, replaced by a local highway with few vehicles, very quiet. We find ourselves at a little church almost alone at Bercianos del Real Camino. The small town gets its name from the settlement of the town from people of the Bierzo valley in 955 A.D. We will be in the Bierzo valley in about 10-12 days.

Here is the very old, small church at Bercianos del Real Camino:

And the inside:

The man in the picture cares for the church, and while he spoke no English, his pride in the church was evident, and he made sure I was happy with my pictures, then stamped my credential, and I was on my way.

The path to El Burgo Ranero continues, now alongside a very quiet small highway. For a good number of kilometers, maybe 15, the Camino path is lined with trees, offering very welcome shade, and I am certain that shade is much more welcome in the height of summer.

And the path continues, on slightly rolling terrain with the fall colors and leaves starting to appear.

I have posted a few pictures of what looked like fields of dried up sunflowers. Today we see this giant machine, some kind of harvester (and made by John Deere), going through the dried up sunflower field. I now suspect that the sunflowers are left to dry in the fields before harvest. It was interesting to see this machine – it is LARGE.

We finally reached the town of El Burgo Ranero, and this sign indicates, a refuge for pilgrims. El Burgo is a small town – population 800 – and the internet access is very poor (I’m struggling with this blog post), but I am grateful for what I get in a town of 800: the people are nice, the company of other pilgrims was fun and interesting, the food was good, and I got a nice shower and a comfortable bed…what else do I need?

A cool monument at the entrance to the town with the date 2002, so it is only 15 years old.

And here is my hotel, Piedras Blancas on one of the two main streets through town. El Burgo Ranero exists now primarily for the Camino de Santiago pilgrims and farmers, with symbols of the Camino in many places, for example, this flower box (one of a series down part of a street):

Tomorrow is another day with a 20 kilometer walk to Mansilla de las Mulas, a town of population 2000, and only one day’s walk from León where I shall have a rest day to rest and explore the large cathedral.

One might ask, “how does it feel to know that you are more than half way to Santiago de Compostela?” The answer is slightly complex. It feels good. There is definitely a sense of accomplishment after walking over 400 kilometers (250 miles). (And it might have been nice to have gotten that half-way certificate in Sahagún.) There is also a long way to go. More of the journey, and I enjoy the journey, which includes the interesting people I meet.

Next: Walking to Mansilla de las Mulas.