Day 11 Belorado, and Bad News...

The approach to Belorado, and the church with adjacent albergue
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Coming onto Belorado, you will see the church right next to the main pilgrim albergue.  The church steeple is home to quite a number of stork nests, and the church itself is nestled up against a cliff with interesting outcroppings.  The albergue, like the place Pierre and I stayed in Logroño, is hosted by volunteer hospitaleros from a Camino friends´group, this one in Switzerland.

Pierre had taken a bus 2 days before, from Najera to Belorado, and stayed in Belorado an extra day to rest his foot.  When I arrived in Belorado, he was already in the albergue.  We caught up a bit, and I found the local internet cafe to catch up on email and banking.  Later, some French and Italian pilgrims invited us to share their spaghetti dinner, so we sat down at a table set for 10, and had a great time.  Stefanie whom I had met in Santo Domingo, was there, and the 2 Italians seemed to speak French, so French was the language for the evening.  I speak terrible French, though I do generally understand it.  I am sure I plagued François, the Swiss hospitalero, with my bad French as I had a dinner conversation about the Peace Corps.

Bad French

Storks, nests on the church steeple in Belorado
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The next morning before setting out for Villafranca, I telephoned Franzi to wish her Happy Birthday, and to see where she was on the camino. I assumed she was a day or so behind, since we had seen her in Lorca.  But no, she said she was home in Salzburg, she had broken her foot!  I was crushed and felt so bad for her.  Then Pierre decided to take the bus on to Burgos, again, he said, to rest his foot.  But I happened to know that June 11 was the opening of Apple´s WWDC (Worldwide Developers´Conference) and that Pierre was intensely curious about it.  Whatever the reasons, Pierre left for Burgos, andI walked.

Belorado cliff detail
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Villafranca is only 12 kilometers or so, so it would be an easy walk.