Hi, Annie,
Thanks for all the updates, many peregrinos will benefit from them.
The albergue at Vilallón is run by the Amigos in Valladolid and is donativo. It´s really nice. It was the only time I had my own private hospitalero. He made me lunch, took me for a tour of the town, took me out for a coffee, and then let me buy him dinner in a bar. In the morning he made me breakfast and accompanied me for the first 8 kms!
I experienced the same confusion between Santervás and Grajal de Campos. And after Melgar de Arriba, I had a hard time till I found the path along the canal that Joe also found. Rebekah and I went back to try to clear things up with arrow painting the next day, but apparently we didn´t do a great job.
I think the problem on this stretch is that there are a lot of arrows put to guide bicycles, and then there´s the walking arrows, and it all gets kind of confusing. I try to avoid road walking like the plague, and there is a nice off-road alternative. Some more explanation in this thread for others who may be walking soon:
http://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/getting-lost-on-camino-de-madrid.15038/
And here are the notes I wrote up when I got home:
Leaving Santervas de Campos, there is a fork and two options. Option 1 is off the road to the left, on a dirt track camino to Melgar de Arriba, very nice, no traffic, pleasant walk. You have to pay attention at intersections, but there are arrows at places where you should turn, otherwise, KSO.
In Melgar de Arriba, leave town, cross the bridge out of town, the church will be in front of you, turn R and go past a few houses. Take a left and go past the cemetery, and then KSO when the road ends and turns into a nice dirt track. This path takes you straight to Arenillas. Right before the town of Arenillas, there's an unmarked fork. Go to the right, it will take you into town. A left turn (which I stupidly did) takes you up to the modern square building connected with the concrete canal you will then have to figure out how to cross.
From Arenillas to Grajal de Campos is all along a canal, very pleasant, no possibility of getting lost.
In Grajal de Campos, camino turns left and over river BEFORE entering town (going into town means leaving the camino, but there is a bar or two and a shop, plus a little plaza and a castle and a palace). In June 2011, there were AVE works here and the signage was bad. After you cross the river, do NOT take the first right along the river, continue on a little further and you will see a mojon taking you to the right and from there straight into Sahagun.
Option 2 from Santervas is to stay on the highway, and that option itself has several options, because you could join up with the camino again at any one of the towns along the highway. You could just stay straight on the highway and go into Sahagun, 14 km on the side of a fairly busy road, or take the highway to Melgar de Arriba and get on the camino there, or stay on the highway a bit further and take it to Arenillas (in other words there is a road option here that you can take to different points on the camino -- to Melgar, to Arenillas, or to Sahagun. I would highly recommend the off-road Camino, that is option 1, it is very pretty and soft surface and no cars).
Still waiting to hear on the opening of the albergue in Grajal de Campos. It will be a great way to break up that long walk from Villalón to Sahagún for those who want to walk further than Santervás or Melgar de Arriba. Buen camino, Laurie
