Day 6(23): Villafranca del Bierzo to Laguna de Castilla

Today was amazing, walking up a very gentle incline in a river valley , before a brutal climb.

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Modified by chatbGPT as it was a little blurry and it also took several years of me 🤣!

We did crash at the Alberge last night because it wasn’t a great day so we missed a really nice town but we were tired and Damian was unwell with an upset stomach and didn’t even make it to dinner.

There was an alternative route out of Villafranca, the official route, or the Alternative, which was a major climb and brutal descent, adding 1.5 km extra. I nearly accidentally went on the alternative but caught myself on. I already had a big climb at the end of the day so adding another was stupid(see the end of yesterday’s post for the profile).

I turned around and went the official route and while the Camino was near the noisy A6 it was beside a fab river called the Rio Valcarce.

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I think there are photos of this guy earlier in the blog. He is German and has a little dog in tow.
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A red Squirrel
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Some Spanish Camino Amigos, these were our roommates 2 nights ago in Ponferrada, we kept seeing each other so I thought it was time for a photo.

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I had to take this, look at how many shoes this guy has!
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Sorry, now take a look! I asked him if he was selling shoes but it got lost in translation.
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Distance to Santiago in case you’re confused.
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An Alberge where I had lunch
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The proprietor was from Denmark and his name was Canute.
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Fab Omelette for lunch but I spilt most of the pepper mill on the floor, Canute was not impressed.
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The back of the Alberge
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The back of the Alberge also.

As we got to the end of the valley there were several very pretty towns.

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This Alberge looks fab maybe next time.
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I met Brett a few times but had a great chat today.

Bret was very nice and great company. He lost his wife and it messed him up pretty good. He however seems to be getting his life back together hence the Camino.

At the end of the valley, we had to climb up from 700m to about 1200m over a short distance.

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Here the A6 was elevated which indicates how high we were going to have to climb.
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It may not look like it in this photo but it’s a very steep road.
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Shade at last
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So there was a man and three horses heading down the valley, there was a service that cost €50 to get a horse ride up to O Cebriero
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The path ahead
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A view back along the Camino as we navigated switchback backs due to the severity of the gradient!
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Getting closer 158km is halfway for part 2
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Beautiful animal

I met Anderson (whom I met the night before) just before the climb and climbed all the way to La Laguna.

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Met some great people, Brad, beside me and Dan and Guss-Father and Son.

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This crew were on their third bottle of wine!

Great day on the Camino.

Stats

Today

Distance: 28.03 km

Elevation: 827m

Duration: 5h38

Totals

Distance: 161.56(636) Km

Elevation: 2,529(10547) m

Duration: 33h46(136h27)

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Tomorrow we head up to O Cebriero, finishing today’s section(2.4km) then heading to Tricastella which is 20.6km, so tomorrow is 23km.