Albacete 23 September 2022

 Albacete 23 September

Today was an easy 11 mike walk to Albacete, the largest city in the La Mancha region. It was from this city in 2017 that I walked the Camino Levante from here to Zamora. With the past nine days of walking from Valencia, I have walked 133 miles and have now completed the entire Camino Levante. 

There is what was supposed to be a new albergue de peregrinos here in Albacete. My route took me past, so  when I saw the shelter for homeless people at that address, I asked and sure enough this was it. Luckily it was full but I would not have stayed even if it wasn't. With no other options, I went on booking.com and found a nice room at the Hotel Europa.

I walked to see the cathedral but it was locked up tight, just as in 2017. I would have thought a big city like this would have a better selection of restaurants, but it was mostly bars and cafeterias. i finally found a menú del diá, but it was rather mediocre. Anyway, I'm resting up back at the hotel to get ready tomorrow for part two of this adventure.

With all the flat land why build a city on the steepest hill around. I started by walking all the to the top.

Then back down

A lot of overdevelopment in the early 2000's left many unfinished ghosts like this absndy industrial site

Nice flat farmland in between 

Hotel Europa 

Vegetable paella. They cheated by using orange colorant instead of saffron 

Mediocre pork chops and greasy French fries. You can't win them all.