Foncesbadon 16.6 miles

Leaving Astorga we passed Iglesia de San Pedro de Rectivia. Per the Google this church has foundations in the Middle Ages; people founded it then to serve pilgrims on the Camino. In recent decades, Astorgans decided to build a new, congruous temple on the site of the old church. At the center of the lower levels of this triangular church are words in Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin, reflecting an ecumenical awareness that all three Abrahamic faiths revere the same god. It was beautiful with mosaics on the floors and front of the church. The stained glass stations of the cross were gorgeous.

We stopped into one more very small church before we got serious into our walk.

Our walk to Foncesbadon was back to challenging. The beginning was not bad at all just some gradual inclines. The weather was perfectly cool and not a strong wind. The sun was shining at times. We walked through a couple of nice small towns.

The end of the walk was the challenging ascent which was from the last town we stopped, Rabanal del Camino, the rest of the way to Foncesbadon. It was semi steep ascent on loose rock and some trickling water and mud at times. I think they had hail two days ago. We are at 4700 feet in elevation and our climb was 1800 feet per my Apple Watch. Supposedly we are at the highest point on the route so far.

We are starting our walk before sunrise to get to the famous Camino Cruz de Ferro sculpture just after sunrise.