Day 28 Molinaseca to Villafranca - 20 miles (45,800 steps)

Castillo de los Templarios, in Ponferrada, the large Templar castle along the river bank.

We had a long day but it was relatively easy walking, although there were other challenges, one of which is I lost one of the lenses on my glasses. We did find the lens, in the dark (unbroken). We had several km to find an Optica shop so I was basically walking blind 🤪🧑‍🦯 thank goodness for Amy. We walked as fast as we could to the next big city where I could get them fixed as we needed to get there before siesta 💤🥱😜! Every shop closes in Spain from 1:30 - 4:30. We made it with 30 minutes to spare then had our daily afternoon beer🤣!( by the way it only cost me 1.80 euros to fix the glasses, 1.50 For the beer😀🍺).

More pictures of the castle and a cool Camino sign we kept seeing.

We found fig trees along the trail and Amy cannot resist. They were delicious.

Beautiful church and another stork nest on the top of the cross next to it. From what we understand, the storks nest in this region in the spring then migrate after the young babies leave the nest. We keep seeing these large nests where the smaller birds are now using. This little chapel had the cutest stamp, I stopped by and did a quick prayer.

We are also back in The wine country and we walked past several vineyards. We also saw this wooden monument of an old Wine press used in the 18th and 19 th century to press grapes in order to make the wine. The press is composed of a large chestnut wood beam with spindle and weights which facilitates the movement and pressing of the grapes into the depository.

The trails today were so much easier on the feet and we continue to make our way through these beautiful mountains.

Photos as we entered our destination for the evening. Villafranca is a beautiful little town. We will have a quiet dinner at our hostel and go to bed early.

Buen Camino!