13 April to Monasterio de Alloz

When you start the day on top of a hill, you know you get to go downhill.
Down through the village…

…and out onto a Roman road:

At the bottom of the hill you find a Roman bridge, and just like yesterday, if you just take a few steps to the side, in this case onto the well.signposted bike route, you get a good look at it.

None of the pilgrims who passed seemed to care for a look. Their loss.

The Roman road continued and I continued to be amazed by it.

Luckily I remembered to look up occasionally…

Then it was getting close to the time I needed to start paying attention for my turnoff. It was time for my detour to the Monastery of Alloz. As it is not right on the camino trail when I was at home I had “walked” along it on Google maps street view to check it was safe and to work out where to divert. I knew that after crossing the road at an intersection there would be the red.barriered motorway going overhead, followed by an aqueduct, also overhead, and then a dilapidated house. The camino would turn left just after the house and I would go straight.

Sure enough…

Have you noticed all the cyclists in those pictures? Must have been a race on and what´s more, the route must have been on the camino trail, because they just kept popping out of that path. I was quite pleased to be continuing along the road.

Video bikes at turnoff

I walked on and a young guy came down from a side road carrying an enormous lettuce in each hand.
“¿Vas a Santiago?”
“No, voy al monasterio”
“Claro, vale, vale”

The exact same conversation would be had twice more with not.racing.cyclists who were keen to put me back on the right path. So kind.

There goes one of them down the double rows of poplar trees I was expecting to see:

And there goes the other over the bridge:

I wouldn’t be crossing the bridge, because there´s the monastery straight ahead.
I am going to be here for a week doing a silent prayer retreat. I don’t expect to be blogging. Or maybe I will. No promises. Once I start walking again, I will be back.