Day 18: León to Hospital de Órbigo

We left León at a respectable 6:15 in the morning.  The weather is delightfully cool and we planned a reasonable 33 kilometer walk for the day.  No sooner had we started on our way than we were met by a Spanish pilgrim, Fernando, going the opposite way. He was lost. We walked with him to the outskirts of the city, and saw him throughout the day through rest stops and long stretches of highway.

It was a long trudge out of León. We passed lots of residential and industrial areas, and more underground bodegas!

Bodegas outside Leon

We had coffee in a beautiful cafe 8.5 kilometers into our walk in La Virgen de Camino. Then it was another 12.7 kilometers to our Coke break in the tiny village of Villadangos.

We're now out of the Meseta.  We have two long days of walking along highways and toward the mountains, before some arduous climbs up Mount Irago. Our views are mostly cornfields.  Vast stretches of corn spreading out in all directions.  And lots of local scrub brush and highways.

View from the road

Cornfields...and some sunflowers

Alongside the cornfields are long deep water channels.  Each farm has an allotment of water.  When it's that farmer's turn, the water is diverted to his fields and floods the whole field.  No need to irrigate: the water is channeled to you directly!  We saw the same system in place in the wine region in Argentina.  It works.

Our final resting spot for the day is Hospital de Órbigo, a historic town with a beautiful 13th century bridge that is the longest and best preserved medieval bridge in all of Spain.  It's arches carry you across the rio Órbigo via the "Passage of Honor", which dates back to the Holy Year 1434.  According to legend, a noble knight from Leon, scorned by a beautiful maiden, threw down his gauntlet and challenged any knight who dared to pass the bridge that he guarded.  After a month, the knight prevailed in withstanding 300 attacks and regained his honor.  This story is thought to be an inspiration for Cervantes Don Quixote. 

Puente de Orbigo

This town is lovely, and our albergue is modern and welcoming.  We walked 33 kilometers today.  We need to go a bit further tomorrow, to position ourselves well for our steep ascent up the mountain on Friday.