Day 16 - Hontanas to Fromista

We start the day after breakfast at around 8:15 a.m. We continue across the fields until we reach the ruins of the St. Anton monastery. There we take our first break of the day. There are five of us on the road today: Ryan, Anton from Finland, Aurora from Germany and Josh from South Africa. A coach arrives shortly after us. People get out, go straight to the stamp station to get their stamp and get back on the bus. These are the typical tourigrinos. They only walk from one place to the next during the day and travel the rest of the way by bus. Then they use the hostels and block them for the real pilgrims. We take the opportunity to take a picture in front of the bus. "This bus? Not for us." We continue on foot and shortly afterwards the bus overtakes us. At the next place we took a somewhat longer break and wasted a lot of time.
Now came the most strenuous part of the day. A mountain that we had to walk up. Very steep and very long. From the top, however, we had a beautiful view in all directions and saw mountains that were still covered in snow. Then came the endless expanse of fields again. At around 2:45 p.m. we reached the place where we wanted to stay. But as expected, everything was already taken. So we ate something, replenished our provisions and continued on. By now it was clear that we would have to walk at least 30 km today. Past a lake, the fields continued to line up one after the other and the road stretched away. Our legs were incredibly heavy because yesterday was already too long a stage behind us.

The sky and the fields looked like they were painted.

Aurora had to be treated by Ryan in between because she had a few blisters and some of them had burst. When we arrived at the next place at around 5:30 p.m., we were again disappointed to find that everything was full. We were offered to sleep on the floor. But we knew that there were still some pilgrims behind us, including much older ones, so we left these emergency places for the others and decided to go further. We came to a canal. By now only Ryan and Anton were with me. Anton and I had fun and threw stones near Ryan and into the water, so that Ryan thought there were huge frogs there, but he still didn't see them 😅 Because the route wasn't long enough, we had to take a detour at one point because a motorway bridge was being built there. Cramps in our legs accompanied us and made the last few kilometers much more difficult. When we arrived in Fromista at around 7:15 p.m., completely exhausted, the hostels were, of course, already full. The odometer shows almost 41km and we have been on the road for 11 hours. After a few phone calls, the owner opens a guesthouse especially for us and I can rest in a single room.
Cost of the day:
Accommodation 25€Breakfast 3,50€Food along the way 13€Dinner 28€