Foncebadón

8-7-25 Murias de Rechivaldo

Tuesday is winding down and we're in a nice quiet spot for the night. Our reservation was cancelled as the building is undergoing remodeling. We decided to stay at the municipal hostel. It's a small, plain, former school, with only ten beds. We are here with one other couple from France. Our host will cook us dinner. We had expected the Camino to be very busy, but the numbers have dwindled in this central portion. We're told things will change when we get to Sarria!

Our last rest day was in Leon. We stayed outside the city and rode the bus in to visit the cathedral and attend mass. Leon is a beautiful city and the cathedral is amazing with high stained glass windows. It has more glass and less walls than any cathedral in Spain.

We’ve been a bit disappointed as these churches are connected to museums and unless you are attending a service you must pay to enter. If you do attend service, you are not allowed to stay long after. Today we did not enter the Astorga cathedral since it was 8 Euros with the pilgrim discount. However, there have many small quiet churches to enter. For quite a few days, we've been walking along the road and it has been monotonous. Tomorrow we will begin climbing back up into the mountains, and Thursday we will reach the highest point of the Camino Frances, 4934 feet. The weather has been just beautiful. We're all dealing with some level of pain. Esther and I (Melissa) did not start with blisters, but as our shoes have become worn the blisters are developing. I have realized my that the hiking shoes are not enough to support a pack. By the end of each day, I've had pretty bad foot pain. This week, I began using the transport service for my pack. It has helped, but I've still been hobbling into the final destination. Ed is dealing with foot pain as well. As we figured, Esther is doing better than both of us. She is also given lots of free candy + snacks! We love the conversations around dinner at night. It really is a unique experience to meet people from all over the world, walking together.

P.S. Our internet we did not have good service yesterday, so had to wait to post this update. We’ve now made it back up into the mountains.