How to Walk the Camino de Santiago: Week 3

Week 3 Summary (Meseta):

Day 15 - Boadilla del Camino to Carrion de los Condes (15.2 mi/24.5 km)

Day 16 - Carrion de los Condes to Terradillos de los Templarios (16.5 mi/26.6 km)

Day 17 - Terradillos de los Templarios to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos (16.4 mi/26.4 km)

Day 18 - Calzadilla de los Hermanillos to Mansilla de las Mulas (14.7 mi/23.6 km)

Day 19 - Mansilla de las Mulas to León (11.1 mi/17.9 km)

Day 20 - León to Villar de Mazarife (13.4 mi/21.5 km)

Day 21 - Villar de Mazarife to Astorga (19.6 mi/31.5 km)




Yes, we’re still walking across Spain and we added another ~107 miles! However, an incredibly exciting thing happened during week 3: WE’RE HALFWAY TO SANTIAGO! The end of the Meseta region is right around the corner (or so we keep reading) and we’re finally starting to see some mountains in the distance instead of the never ending windmills. We’re excited to see the landscape as it begins to change, along with the weather, when we start week 4. We have been thinking about fall in Michigan quite often, but we’ve been incredibly surprised to walk by a few changing trees in the crisp mornings. I won’t say I’ll be missing winter anytime soon, but it’s been nice to smell the leaves! We were even served pumpkin soup at one of our albergues (yum)!

Highlights

This was our week of mainly albergues, but we survived and saved a lot of money (Ricardo is pretty happy about that)! We went through two really cool cities towards the end of this week. The first was León on day 19. We originally considered taking our first rest day here, but our guidebook stated this was a shorter day (11 miles) and would take about 4 hours. We started early in the morning and made it to town by 11:00 a.m. We used this as our “rest day” and we took our time relaxing before heading out to enjoy the Patron Saint Day festival that happens on October 5th every year. It was awesome that we hit it without planning! We grabbed a beer in the plaza outside the Cathedral and got a free tapa! However, it is not like Granada and the tapas do not get better with additional beverages... The Cathedral is definitely one worth visiting as well. It has beautiful stained glass windows installed between the 13th-15th centuries. We really enjoyed that visit.

   

    

 

The next town we enjoyed was Astorga on day 21. Although we didn’t make it to the chocolate factory (don’t believe any opening hours you find online for most places in Spain), we did visit the Astorga Cathedral (outside only) and the Palacio de Gaudi, which was a palace for an Archbishop before becoming the Museo de los Caminos where religious artifacts are now held. It was nice visiting a bigger city and having more to choose from at the supermarket too!

More Lessons...

• Every morning while walking we made a mental list of the things we needed to plan when we got to our next accommodation “when we had good wifi.” Hint: there is no “good wifi” on the Camino (you’re lucky you’re getting this post).


• We aren’t lying about having good shoes.

Extra Information - Where We Stayed & Pricing (based on 2 ppl):

Night 16: Boadilla del Camino to Carrion de los Condes: Santa Maria Municipal Albergue €10. 2 Bunks. Just walked in - no reservation.

Night 17: Carrion de los Condes to Terradillos de los Templarios: Hostel Los Templarios €20. 2 Bunks. Called to reserve.

Night 18: Terradillos de los Templarios to Calzadilla de los Hermanillos: Via Trajana €40. Private room/private bath. Called to reserve.

Night 19: Calzadilla de los Hermanillos to Mansilla de las Mulas: Gaia €10. 2 Bunks. Called to reserve - Breakfast is donation based. We really enjoyed this albergue - small rooms (8 beds) and nice kitchen and backyard patio.  

Night 20: Mansilla de las Mulas to León: Check In León €20. 2 Bunks. Booking.com. Nice shared updated bathrooms and nice common spaces (lounge area and kitchen).

Night 21: León to Villar de Mazarife: Tio Pepe €18. 2 Bunks. Called to reserve. 

Night 22: Villar de Mazarife to Astorga: Siervas de Maria Albergue €10. 2 bunks in a room of 22 - We found out later we could have asked for a smaller room of only 4 for the same price! Beautiful mountain view off the back patio. Just walked in - no reservation.