Day 29 and 30, In the city of the Counts and along a Roman road

The Senda
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Day 29 & 30, June 15^th and June 16^th

Fromista to Carrion de los Condes, to Calzadilla de la Cueza

408km to Santiago, 544km from start

Distance: 20km, 18km

The church of Santa Maria de la Blanca
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With two unusually cool days on the meseta we made good progress.

It was cold but clear leaving Fromista. Were going to be spending much of the day on ‘senda’. A decade ago, Spanish administrators decided that making purpose-built ways . . sendas . . for pilgrims in would make travel easier in some spots. True, but many of routes they built were directly along highways and not very interesting. Today’s trip on the senda was 20km, never more than five yards from the highway, and dead straight.

Carrion de los Condes
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This worked out well today because Marie’s left foot was still bothering her so a level path was helpful and we passed through several villages. Followed our usual pattern of coffee (and aspirin) after the first two hours. An hour later we got to the village of Villasirga the location of a large 13^th century church. Santa Maria la Blanca was another knights templar church and was chock-a-block full great stuff including a big altarpiece dedicated to Santiago.

I’d gotten us a room at a hotel on the way out of town that was a converted monastery attached to the church of San Zoilo with 12^th century roots. It was a great place and had wireless internet access in the bar. What more could you ask for. After settling in, we walked back to town to get groceries and see the sights. Carrion de los Condes was the home of several rich Counts who had a falling out with El Cid. It ended badly for them but the town fared better with several interesting churches and museums. The rest of the day was uneventful but pleasant.

Drying out some things
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We only had 18km the next day so we didn’t start out until after daylight. Another unusually cool day on the meseta with gray skies. We were off the senda today and on a long stretch of country path that was originally a well- traveled roman road. Called Via Traiana, it linked Burgundy in France to northwest Spain. Like most roman roads it was very straight, flat and afforded another easy day on Marie’s ankle.

The Spanish have definitely begun to sense the $ value of the Camino. In the past, today’s stage was an 18km stretch with no village or anything along the way. Beginning several days back, we started seeing multi-language posters that a bar-cafe had opened at the halfway point of this stage. Sure enough, a fellow had set up a generator-powered trailer with outdoor seating, a full food and drink offering, and port-a-pots. I always like encouraging enterprise, so we stopped for coffee.

By noon we were in Calzadilla de la Cueza. That’s a lot of words for a very small village. The local bar and restaurant did have rooms so we checked in there. One surprise for me about the villages in the meseta is the large number of adobe houses. Often they’ve been plastered over or painted but it’s mud, clay and straw. More than half the homes in the smaller villages are made this way. Apparently it rains so little that it works. It sure did rain today though.

Villages: Fromista, Poblacion de Campos, Revenga de Campos, Villamentero de Campos, Villasirga, Carrion de los Condes, Calzadilla de la Cueza