San Justo de la Vega

Santiago! 500 down 293 to go!

I made it to San Juso de la Vega.  It is about 5km outside of Astorga.  It would have been nice to get to the city as it is good sized, but my feet were not going to travel any further today.  It is very hot and windy, 

BUT!!!

I am excited to see that I have less than 300 km to go!

I have been traveling with a Danish woman named Penilla. She is an artist of about 50ish and speaks excellent English.   We seem to get up and out at about the same time and I have enjoyed our conversations.  She is very attuned to the people around her and their feelings.

Signs of the camino are very present everywhere.    (left) See the statues of the pilgrims right in with all the bottles at the Albergue/bar/cafe that we are staying at tonight.   We stopped walking about 2:00pm.  I find that about 25k is about all I physically can do in a day.

It is so windy today that it is not nice outside, but it smells like smoke in the bar/cafe.  There are not any "No Smoking" signs or laws in this part of Spain.  So outside I go.   I am sitting in the town square drinking a Tinto de Verano and writing in my journal.   This is as close to a siesta as I get.

Leischen sent the recipe for this Spanish Wine Cocktail

 Tinto de Verno  ( In Spanish it means Red Wine of Summer)

Fill a 20+ oz glass with 4-5 ice cubes

Add  glass with 1/2 red wine (any kind as long as you like it) and 1/2 lemon lime soda

garnish with a sliced lemon and enjoy.

Just a couple cute things about this  little village

It seems that the birds are just crazy for the 

bell tower of the church.  There are nests all over it. They have tried to move them out, but to no avail. The birds are there to stay.

The streets are pretty plain and simple, but not as ancient as we would imagine.