Peñaflor de Hornillos 26 September

The big question morning, should I go into the large, industrial city of Vallodolid just to view its cathedral or do I just take the actual Camino path through the country? As I walked through Puente Duero, I saw the bus that could take me into Vallodolid, but decided by to bypass the city for a full day of walking.

The first six kilometers took me through the last of the pine forests to Simancas. No more forest-from here it is wide open meseta with few trees. This country is one of relatively flat buttes, with river valleys between, but the climb up and down from those flat spots can be quite steep. The midpoint of my walk was the town of Ciguñuela. I found a nice bar with wifi and had a coffee with tortilla española and got caught up with my email and Facebook. The afternoon took me through the town of Wamba, then on to Peñaflor de Hornillos, all the towns approximately evenly between spaced. The walk was 26 km (16 miles) and I arrived at the albergue about 3 pm. I thought I might be alone tonight as the two peregrinas did go in to Valladolid to do some shopping and to see the cathedral. It would have been a long walk from the city, but they took a cab as far as Wamba, then walked the rest of the way here to the albergue. By the way, the cathedral was closed, so it was just as well that I did not go into Valladolid today.

The Rio Duero at Simancas

Pilgrim art

The steep descent then the steeper ascent in Peñaflor de Hornillos at the end of today's walk 

From here one, it will be all meseta, all the time