Week 22: From Camino de Santiago to Madrid

Third week hiking the Santiago trail in northen Spain. Even though we have been walking to new villages almost every day the whole Camino-thing has started to feel like one place. Maybe it's the repeating daily routines that make me feel that way.

We didn't make it to the end, but it wasn't our plan either. We hopped on a bus to Madrid on Wednesday. We have a hotel right in the center of the city, near Puerta del Sol, for two nights, before our flights back to Finland on Friday.

Welcome to our weekly recap! This one's for May 29th-June 4th, which is week 22, 2014.

Surprise of the week: I met a young American woman who suddenly started to talk to me in fluent Finnish. She had been to Finland (rare enough) for an exchange year (rare), in my home town (extremely rare), in the same high school as I went (stupendously rare) and learned the language (borderline impossible).

Workwise: New projects starting up, so we needed to rethink our walking plan. We decided to walk shorter days to get more working hours, and to stay in bigger towns for better wifi.

What did I learn: I figured it's maybe a bit too early for us to know where we want to settle down for life, when we are barely able to stay for a single month in one place. Guess we'll know that we are getting older when we can make it two months. Not likely to happen this year though.

Food love: No astronomical gastronomical blasts this time, but the week was saved by delicious fresh cherries, sold to us by a local farmer by the side of the road. We saw many people selling cherries, some driving around by car, the trunk loaded with them, stopping by people on the way.

Tip of the week: The trail is getting more crowded the closer you get to Santiago. It might be a good idea to reserve your bed beforehand. For some of the albergues you can do the reservations by email.

Random thought: I've seen more automatic lights in hostels and restaurants in Spain than anywhere else. And they turn off super fast. Quite a few times I've found myself alone in a dark bathroom, furiously waving my hands in the air to wake up the motion detector.

Most memorable moment: Finding the "bus stop" to Madrid just in time after almost running the 1,5 km back from the village that had its name on the ticket. Waving the bus to stop, throwing our backpacks in the luggage hold, getting to our seats for a 6-hour bus ride and letting out a looong sigh.

Walking up the highest climb (wasn't that bad).

People left their sins at top of the hill at Cruz de Ferro.

Walking downhill was in fact much harder.

Yey, the sun is back again.

Where is Waldo?

The Templar castle in Ponferrada.

The 'credentials', you get stamps from places along the way.

Cherry trees and vineyards.

Trail art.

Many of the buildings along the road have been nicely renovated. This wasn't one of those.

Office view in Villafranca del Bierzo

Quite a lot of walking right beside the road this week.

And that's it for our week. How was yours?

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This post is part of Instagram Travel Thursday and all the pics are from our Instagram account. Instagram Travel Thursday ia a gathering of Instagram related blog posts every week. You can find a list of other participating posts, or add your own post, at Destination Unknown, Skimbaco Lifestyle or at many other hosts' sites. You can also participate by tagging your Instagram pics with #igtravelthursday.