Last night was a great experience. A big very Spanish house, surrounded by gardens full of peacocks, ducks and geese. There were 7 refugee Pellegrinos for supper, which was served by Senora in a lovely hall. The food was largely fresh from the garden, and freshly prepared. Soup, cheese, ham, red and green peppers, tomatoes and pork with sauce. A thousand times better than the usual menu pellegrino. I chatted to Frederique from Paris, in French for an hour after supper, so my French is  not as rusty as it could be. Frederique had walked all the way from Conques ( an amazing place) on one of the French Caminos. 

Breakfast was also great, and we were all dropped off back at the Caminio by 8:15. 

Then the meseta really started. The early part of the morning was spent covering several km of flat open landscape, the aging  crop stubble leaving everything dirty beige. The meseta is scored with river valleys, where the villages are located. It is a bigger, wilder version of the southern Quercy plateau that we used to live in in South West France, so there were many echoes in the landscape of our past life. 

The first village in the first valley was the lovely, lively, friendly village of Hontanas. The church had the same life. It was the first church I gave found with real candles since St Jean pdp. Also, they were all lovely sweetie colours. Elf and safety has a lot to answer for. The electric candles have no soul. 

A long walk along the valley took me through the miserable, spooky, quiet town of Castrojeriz. I did not even stop for lunch. 

The afternoon involved a steep climb back onto the plateau, and views that left no doubt about how far this plateau walk is going to be. 

Arrived here in Itero de la Vega mid afternoon at my highly salubrious accommodation, not quite last night, but it is a single room with shared facilities for €14. Not quite sure what the menu Pellegrino will be like tonight.

Every day brings  something new, but every night, whether you have booked accommodation or  not, is a lucky dip.  The dorms vary hugely, and the rooms vary hugely. At the moment given accommodation is tight, just having any bed is a bonus. 

Sept is obviously a very popular time to come. So far I have only met independent travellers who are 'going the whole way'.  However, there are some very large organised groups around that suck up all the accommodation, particularly in these parts which are really remote. I passed 1 such group this morning. About 25 of them were standing each side of the path waiting for one poor soul to emerge from a Bush. Mornings can be like London Bridge at 8:00 am at times. Thankfully there is a herd instinct that covers both groups and independents, where it would appear it is illegal to walk after about 1pm. The afternoons are left to me and a very few other rule breaker to e joy the silence and the solitude. More about the mechanics of the walk another time. Hopefully I can load some photos