Once again we are blessed with a room full of folks who don’t snore. Now, speaking with the full authority of a 60+ years old bloke I am surprised at this. The demographic of the peregrinos who walk in September is traditionally an, ahem, older group (‘Silver September’ is a phrase you might hear). And I reckon it’s largely men, maybe 60/40 split, if not more. So, in a room full of old blokes what would you expect? Snoring! But no… I’m not sure why not. Is it all the good clean living? Who knows…
It was also quite cool last night. At 3am or so, someone got up to close a windows, which was a first on this trip.
We creep out of town, being as quiet as possible. We have a short day today.
You could divide the Camino into sections, each denoted by a major city. You would have SJPP as the start, then Logrono, Burgos, Leon and Santiago. Today we find ourselves about halfway between Logrono and Burgos.
We suanter through Redecilla del Camino, Castildelgado and Viloria de la Rioja.
And arrive in Belorado, our destination for the day, around noon.
The albergue is another donativo, run by the Swiss chapter of the Federation of St James (I can’t recall the proper title). The hospitalero couple are splendid folks – he looks like a Swiss Santa Claus. They are sitting in the sun, outside the ancient church, greeting all the passing peregrinos.
Belorado is a pretty little town with the, by now, usual top quality murals decorating the old buildings.
It’s a busy day in town. There’s a wedding in the church. And in the evening there’s some sort of procession from one church to another in the town.
Here’s the wedding:
The guests at this wedding are very stylish. Speaking as a representative of one of the pale and pasty nations of Europe I cannot help but envy my southern neighbours. I don’t know. There must be some ugly people in Spain but I don’t know where they are. Maybe there’s a dark demented city ordinance forbidding the ugly from going out in the daylight. Or, maybe it’s the sun and the diet. Whatever. I am jealous.
I head to the square and eat patata bravas and champagne Americain (that’s Coke Zero, in case you were worried) for lunch.
Llew and I head off to the supermarket to stock up on the boring stuff and come across some yarnbombing on the way back.
Diana makes us all dinner…
Now, it’s time for the procession. Again, we don’t really know what’s going on – so here it is…
The chant is an earworm and gets stuck in my head for hours.
Around 9:30 our Rolex wearing Santa Claus of a hospitalero does the rounds of the church estate to lock up.
His last action of the day is to turn on a projector on the other side of the road that produces the best camino arrow of the trip.
Off to bed…
Day 10: Stats
Granon to Belorado
- Steps: 29,192
- Distance covered: 22.8 km
- Apple Watch stats
- 9 ‘Flights Climbed’