The Church of San Pollo

Well I went to bed in the nunery in Santo Domingo last night only to be woken at 5:30 by some idiot in my room who had their clock set for 5:30 but let it ring for a full 6mins!!!! (I checked my watch!) Worse was, the place we were in was only open between 6:45-7:45 so there was no point getting up that early because you´d have had to sit around and wait for the doors to open.

As my feet were still a bit tender, I was in no mood for rushing off early and even got kicked out by a nun at 7:50am with two Danish travellers!

I went and had breakfast with them and then waited for the Cathedral to open to see inside.

<STOP PRESS>

I got a few things wrong in yesterdays story.

Firstly, the family didn´t go to Santiago and return to get their son. They found him BEFORE going to Santiago. Secondly, the cock and hen were roasted for dinner before crowing and flying in the judges room.And it wasn´t a bag of money but a silver chalice. But you get the drift.

The Cathedral was amazing but unfortunately you couldn´t take photos. And they were pretty stick about that as I sort of got told off because she thought I was taking a photo!

Unfortunately for me, the used to have a part of the gallows that the boy was hanged on but 2 weeks ago, it fell down in the middle of the night so they didn´t have it on display. However I did see the live cock and hen on display!

I ran into an English bloke travelling with 2 Hungarian women that I met the day before and they invited me to lunch and before I knew it, it was 3pm and I hadn´t started walking!

I quickly said goodbye and dreaded the 22km I had planned for that day. I saw that there was a place with rooms about 12km along the track so made my way along to find it was called ´El Chocoladad´ or something like that! This was my sorta refugio! Alas, it was nothing more than a roadside diner with a motel on top. Err, no thanks. So I continued on the remaining 11km to Belorado, my original plan. I later found out that I missed out on a strip club the same town as El Chocoladad. My loss! However, the thing that kept me going the whole time was seeing the signs advertising the alburge with a pool!

It seemed like forever but I finally got here at 8pm but thankfully there's not a lot to see here so I'll leave a little earlier than today in the morning.

There wasn't a lot to see on the walk here today except the church that Santo Domingo was baptised in and apparently the home he was born in was over the street from it but I couldn't find it. Then again, I'm looking for the house that a guy born in 1019 was born in. It's possible it might not be in use still.

BTW. For those fellow Pelegrinos who are reading this, I caught up to Carlos in Santo Domingo and tonight and we're both aiming for the same town tomorrow. I'll keep tabs on him!