12 Grañon to Villafranca Montes de Oca - 17 miles

 Early start in the morning = late coffee.

To once again try to get some mileage done before the afternoon heat settled in, we were out the door by 6:15 this morning. This is still later than a lot of pilgrims. And it meant that we would get coffee and breakfast on the way. After all, there were several small towns we would be going through and each was only a few kilometers apart. Unfortunately, I learned that shops don’t open early on Saturday mornings.  Ooops. 

However, we did see a beautiful sunrise. 

And we passed into the next region: Castilla y Leon. 

One of the small towns we went through was Viloria de Rioja. It is the birthplace of Saint Dominic - our a chicken miracle Saint from yesterday. 

Eventually we made it to Bellorado where I found a good cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I spent a little time just walking around this cute little town and stopped by the main church. Definitely a few interesting things going on there. No, I don’t know who the saint is.

Then, once again, it was time to make the final stretch of the day. Today was a long day about 17 miles and it was starting to get a little warm and my feet are starting to hurt. But low and behold in the town of Villambistia it was as if the heavens open because I came across a café that was advertising smoothies. I got the raspberry mango… 

…and that was enough to get me to our final destination of Villafranca Montes de Oca where we had the whole afternoon to just rest and read and relax and hang out with other pilgrims.

Buen Camino!