Biking Spain’s Camino de Santiago

Bicycling 330 miles of Spain’s Camino de Santiago in 11 days, from Burgos to Santiago De Compostella, in 2015.

We arrived in burgos flight bus on May 23rd and caught our first glimpse of the city’s Cathedral which was very near our hotel from our hotel window we had this view of a Plaza and the Cathedral and got our first sighting of walking pilgrims or peregrinos looking a bit

Weary at the end of the day the city was vibrant with big crowds and all the plazas and special events going on some of our group watched a wedding while waiting for the rest to arrive from other parts of Spain the next day we had time to visit other

Local attractions such as the impressive Museum of human evolution on our first day of writing we traveled 43 kilometers or 27 miles as we would discover much of the writing if not in the countryside was through sleepy villages that looked all but deserted except for the occasional

Camino Walker or biker this is the village of horny O’s del camino’ where we got a quick lunch at the local Camino Oriented aliment se own before saddling up for the afternoon’s ride through rolling farmland to Castro’s there is their go Hal and Becka who were generally out front blazing the trail in

The afternoon after climbing a few hills where I had my first and only fall into a briar patch we had a pleasant downhill stretch through a lovely valley with an old monastery rolling farm lands and a tree-lined country road with little traffic except for us and some peregrinos our destination lay below a

Hill with a castle on top the next morning we headed west again up a steep hill on the other side of which the Camino stretched towards the seemingly endless and flattened maceda Spain’s equivalent of America’s Midwestern Plains the way down was steep enough that some of us walked our bikes

Giving us time to appreciate the changing light on the landscape it was here I began to see that even for me committed agnostic the Camino could provide what I might call a spiritual experience there were cottonwood trees everywhere offering what looked like a summer snowfall at the former monastery where

We stayed in carrion to loast kundus on our third day of writing we encountered the full expanse of the Meseta when we passed walkers there would be greetings of buen Camino and we always tried to give them a wide berth and the Meseta went on and on with an occasional town

Or village offering an oberg or hostel and a place to rest eat or grab a coffee or a cold drink that night we stayed in a former convent with Pleasant rooms that we barely had time to appreciate because before we knew it the time had come to get up and do it again

I tried to get some candid looking shots of our crew who had trouble not posing and smiling yeah don’t look at the camera don’t smile don’t don’t even notice after four days during which we rode over 120 miles we had a welcome day off in the beautiful city of Lyon which

Features an impressive Cathedral and an early restrained example of the work of Antonio Gaudi who later designed some of the more fantastical buildings in Spain our fifth day of writing took us out of the city of Lyon and across the rest of the Meseta towards that store go beyond

Which we would encounter serious buildings we crossed the long multi arch old or big old bridge and heard the legend of a knight who felt himself enslaved by love to a woman who did not return his affections he strove to break the enslavement symbolized by a heavy

Iron ring around his neck by jostling with other knights from around Europe in the village of Valera store Vigo we happened upon some sort of festival foretold by the spreading of fennel or anise on the local thoroughfare we later took a break where this man and

A woman who had made a film about him offered free refreshments and rest to weary pilgrims according to the woman who made the film the man had given up his profession and had been running the show ASIS for the past seven years we could now see the hills in the distance

Beyond our day’s destination Astorga in Astorga we found another of gaudí’s early less fanciful architectural creations then had a pleasant meal before retiring to rest up for the next day’s big climb Terry and I made a plan stop on the outskirts of El gonzo to take some photos to send our trainer we

Liked the macho Rara sound of El gonzo not knowing that it means goose locally El gonzo was another sleepy village with mon major hotspot the cowboy bar he made one more brief stop at robbing all before taking on the major climb up to the Cruz de Ferro or Iron Cross

This is the highest elevation of the Camino and the place where many pilgrims leave rocks and other mementos carry placed a piece of polished amethyst that cassius our grandson had given her to bring to the spot then we saddled up to savor the 14 kilometer downhill coast to today’s destination

Millena Seca we pass through a few tiny spots that in some ways resembled twister Italian amount of religious day seven was our shortest about 30 kilometers giving us a chance to rest up before another major we went through the large city of on ferrata and saw the imposing 12th

Century castillo de los templarios this is the region called El Bierzo which has some of the most charming scenery we pass through day eight brought another major Hill kind before the big climb we went through a pleasant River Valley with views of the spectacular german-built freeway and local businesses that

Sometimes reminded us of home here’s a view from near the top back the way we’d come in the far distance you can see the valley of El Bierzo and beyond it the mountains we rode over two days ago near the top we stopped for lunch at one of

The older buildings on the Camino then we biked on a bit more climbing to a statue of a windblown pilgrim at today’s highest point alto doe coil or chicken heights as we call it then another long long downhill until we finally arrive at samos after a 60

Kilometer day on day 9 we went through the town of Surya which presented unique navigational and topographic challenges until we finally got through town and found some of the roughest writing we’d experienced but our guide Anna would call more technical calling for some advanced uphill technique here we faced

A familiar choice between the paved road to the left and the actual unpaved camino to the right the question was would the road take us down hill and necessitate another climb we didn’t know so we chose the Camino and eventually got back to the road one way to confirm

We were on the right track was to find pilgrims walking getting close to Port amar in the next day we had our first overcast morning and lots of pilgrims making time in the coolness but soon the Sun came out and it was just another beautiful day

Then after spending the night in our zua we rode the final 30 kilometers to Santiago and we arrived at our quiet hotel Street just as the local school kids were getting up later we joined many other pilgrims looking for the destination Cathedral and the place where you could get your

Camino passport officially stamped and recorded and eventually we found the grandeur and peace of the Cathedral you