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🇪🇸 Camino de MADRID (Madrid - Sahagún)
A short walk continued...
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[QUOTE="timr, post: 570656, member: 5237"] Saturday November 25th Day 3 Medina de Rioseco to Villalón de Campos 29.5 km Total 94.5 km [I]No room at the albergue - but room at the inn[/I] The following morning after a restful night disturbed only a little by the noise of heavy rain I joined the Sisters for Mass at 9am. After Mass the Sisters told me that they would move to Valladolid finally on December 8 2017 because of age, infirmity and falling numbers. The convent was built in 1491-2. Sister Maria Concepcion talking to me told me she had been there for 64 years, since before I was born. It is a big step. After 525 years the Convent will be abandoned. The fate of the albergue remains unclear, though in the short term it will close. Quite possibly I will be the last person ever to stay there. The road out of town is easy to find and there is a choice of ways but I took the obvious one and walked along the Canal de Castile. An elderly man looked with concern at my shoes before assuring me it would be OK, but it would be wet at times. There are reports of troublesome mosquitoes during the summer but there were none to be seen or heard. I presume many people know that a canal has a beginning/end - I am not sure that I did. But there it is in the town - a curved 'end wall'. It is a very beautiful and scenic walk and where for the first time I encountered, as the man in town had implied, mud! There had been heavy rain during the night. Large numbers of birds on the water, geese, ducks, herons etc. After about 5km the canal takes a quite unnatural 90 degree turn to the right, but the pilgrim does not, and so leaves the canal behind, making its way to Boadilla or thereabouts. There is a lock on the canal at that point, called an [I]esclusa[/I] in Spanish, and helpful interpretative notices explaining how it works. The canal level is rising as it turns right. The walking pilgrim is now back on the meseta, and soon arrives at the sleepy town of Tamariz. With a fine big strong (closed) church (S. Pedro) and next to it a quite modern tiny plaza and a casa consistorial. There is also a remaining tower, very impressive, of an old church of St John the Baptist. In the modern square which I guess is the plaza mayor is a strange looking little building in the corner with chairs outside, but all locked up. After my excursion to Carrefours-extra in Medina, unlike the enclosed Sisters, I am like a travelling kitchen and I have queso and chorizo bocadillos (my own recipe), and olives and chocolate and banana and apple for lunch. In splendid isolation. But I notice a quite elderly man under the balcony of the Casa Consistorial who gives me a wave. The clock on the Casa says 1pm and the clock on the church in exact synchronization chimes once. Which is strange as my ultrasophisticated Garmin running watch, communicating with ten or a dozen satellites, tells me that it is in fact 12:50. Both cannot be right. Such speculation is curtailed when a car pulls up and a man gets out and proceeds to the curious little building. Tamariz comes to life in a flurry of activity. The man under the balcony shuffles slowly out across the tiny plaza mayor, followed by an older and slower man who also greets me. Remarkably, and 'against the run of play' as the sports commentators say, the bar is about to open. At 12:50 local time. The shutters are raised, the heating is turned on, and the two customers beckon me in. The bar is a single square room with about three tables with chairs. We chat for a pleasant quarter of an hour. The seniors drink wine and I have a bottle of San Miguel with a ring pull cap - never seen before by me! The older of the the two customers is like a stern oral examiner - he only talks when he has an olive in his mouth, which does not aid my comprehension, and he relies on the younger senior to translate from olive-Castellano to Castellano for me. They are all lovely and very encouraging of my endeavours. I head off and decide to stay on the tarred road, in the complete absence of any traffic. Let me confess, heretically, that I don't mind asphalt and in fact quite like it. I am a road runner when I am not walking. I do distinguish between concrete and asphalt, preferring the latter. But I don't get excited. And don't get me started on 'the cobbles of the Portuguese Camino'. If, manifestly, octogenarian beldams in bedroom slippers can manage to walk on cobbles, I can too. I am conscious that other opinions are available on these road surface issues. So another 8-9km and the larger town of Cuenca de Campos. There is a municipal building, perhaps a town hall, and I think the albergue is in it. There is some kind of community function taking place, perhaps a children's show or some kind of fundraiser in the hall, but I don't linger as it is getting cold. I didn't see a bar, though I feel sure there must have been one. Probably. From there it is a short, easy, unexciting walk into the larger again town of Villalón. Is it a city? How would I know? It has lots of shops and banks and bars and several churches. And it has a municipal albergue, 'open all year' described as 'highly recommended.' It is down a sort of side street away from the town and away from the camino - how to find it very clearly explained in the CSJ guide. It is of course closed, but looks lovely inside through the windows. The only notice says "We open at 1500." It is now 1700 and getting noticeably chilly. And there is no sign of life. I find two phone numbers on a website: +34983761185 doesn't connect. +34 983 740 011 gets through to the ayuntamiento with a recorded list of numbers to press, for administration, library, turismo etc. I press 4 for turismo. After a crackle I am rewarded with music - Mozart's Requiem. Hard to complain about such beautiful music but it is not encouraging in the circumstances. I try half a dozen times but never get past the music. There is no one on duty on Saturday afternoon. By now it is very cold and I am shivering. I need to cut my losses. There is a smart upmarket hotel across the road, with rooms at €39 which is beyond what I need so I walk back 200m into the town and check in a bar if they have rooms. They do. A cheery and pleasant young teenage lad communicates I guess with his mother on a mobile and she guides him through the process of signing me in. We find interestingly that we share a birth date, though in different centuries! The room is nice and warm and is en suite. They are going to serve me a menu at 9pm. This seems good, though €25 is a bit steep. I investigate a few shops. At the 'bread and milk' shop the shopkeeper beckons me when he sees me looking in the window. I buy a baguette and we chat. He tells me the Irish coalition government is about to collapse, which is news to me, but he finds the story in today's paper and shows me. He's correct, although in fact it does survive. I am looking for Mass. Neither church I investigate has any information but the main and imposing parish church in the large, terraced, plaza mayor, I imagine, will have either vigil Mass on Saturday and/or Mass on Sunday. The aged website suggests 10am on Sunday. I repair to a different bar from "mine" to use the wifi. And get warm again. Church bells ring loudly and continuously at 7pm, but no one appears and no doors open. [I learned later that this will have been a half hour warning and probably Mass was at 7:30, but I don't venture out again]. I have the menu at 9pm. Nutritious, strictly, but not in any way delicious. Next morning, I feel I should be celebrating the Sabbath with a lie-in, then breakfast, and then I will wait for 10am Mass. It is the Solemnity of Christ the King, an important liturgical day. I go on a photo-tour of the town centre, lots of interesting details - shop windows and doorways. And I stumble on the Tourist office with a sign in the window saying it is open from 1700-2000 on Thursdays to Sundays. There is no indication if this applies in November. There is nothing to indicate the age of this notice. I recommend if you plan to arrive at the weekend, especially outside of the summer season, to ring the ayuntamiento and connect to the tourist office in working hours on a weekday. I feel if you did you would get into the large albergue. Or you will find the tourism office easily in the main square on the opposite side from the church: stand on the bottom step of the church entrance and with the church behind you it is on your left. There is an illuminated clock over a pharmacy which reports that the temperature is 0 degrees. It feels less. It is VERY VERY cold, though clear and dry and not windy. I wait for Mass at 10am. No bells, no people, no celebration. I leave at 10:01. But it is a very nice town and I am sure would be very lively on a week day. Total pilgrims met - 0. [/QUOTE]
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