Day 18 : less than 500 km to go

Day 18 : less than 500 km to go, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

Today my sweet talking rear camera had a painful day off. Headaches and a hurting butt kept honey silent for most of the day. For her it must have been some tormenting long 90 km - our longes distance in Spain. But as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Early morning we passed a sign indicating that we are now less than 500 km from Santiago. We stop to quickly make a picture of this most important landmark :-) But we won't be quickly back on the road since I managed to lock up the chain. It took more than half an hour to get us on the road again. Luckily I brought many latex gloves (it wasn't the first time that the chain blocked).

We had a first stop at Fromista, a little town boasting one of the most beautiful Romanesque churches along the Camino (11th century).

From Fromista on the Camino runs parallel to the N-120 for most of the time. We exchanged lots of 'Buon Camino' with the hikers, whose numbers seem to grow by the day.

Until midday high clouds kept the sun from frying us, but by early afternoon we felt the burning heat again of temperatures rising well above 30 C. People keep telling us that so many such hot days are not usual for September. Before we started the trip, we hoped for sun and good weather, we certainly found it here in Spain and maybe a bit more than we had wished for.

Final destination today is Sahagun. Muslim invasion totally razed the region and it was not until the 10th century that monks coming from Cordoba founded a monastery here. The arrival of monks from the French monastery of Cluny and the financial support and royal privileges granted by the then king, marked the splendor of one of the most powerful and important abbeys of the Spanish middle-ages - unfortunately, of which only remains can be found today.