We stayed at the Hotel Jacebo, a 2 star hotel right on the main road to Burgos. The rooms were fine and they had a “terrace”, which was really a fenced off area of the pavement, that was a nice little sun-trap.
The view from my room was of the main road back the way we had come and I had a spare bed – useful for unpacking and providing a spare pillow. Acoustically this hotel is very noisy, from the road and from the cafe / breakfast area – not helped by 4 mountain bikers who didn’t know how to be quiet (at all hours).
It was a cold morning (about 6c) as we set off with the prospect of no sunshine but also no rain. The clouds were low in the sky as we followed pretty much the same type of path / scenery as yesterday. We crossed the river on a wooden footbridge beside the stone Puente de piedra “El Canto which was rebuilt by Santo Domingo de la Calzada, helped by the holy builder, San Juan de Ortega, in the time of Alfonso VI.
We stopped at the Ermita de San Roque to get a stamp in our pilgrim’s passport (we need at least 2 per day to receive our Compostela at the end).
We walked, briefly through Villafranca Montes de Oce, before heading up a decent sized, steep, hill through the forest. We walked straight past our hotel for the night as we will be getting a taxi back here at the end of the walk. The monument is the Monumento La Pedraja which lays tribute to the people shot and buried here by the forces of General Francisco Franco between July and November 1936.
From there it was a long walk, along a forestry track, continuing upwards for a little more, before evening out with a gradual descent down to San Juan de Ortega where we had a couple of coffees while waiting for our taxi back to the hotel. The sun made an all too brief appearance but otherwise it was cold – hence the coats. We start from here again tomorrow.
