Monasterio San Juan de la Pena, May 19

After an early breakfast at the hotel, we headed up the trail toward the Monastery San Juan de la Pena.  It was a very steep and rocky 4 km climb, but with some great views of the valley below.

The monastery is truly one of the world's wonders.  It was built into and underneath rock cliffs, and has been long connected with the royal family of Aragon; several kings are buried here.  We explored the various rooms: open spaces where the monks lived, chapels and other sacred spaces.

 

 

 

 

After exploring the old monastery, we took a short shuttle to the "new" monastery (built and occupied in the 18th century) and museum, then headed back down the trail to Santa Cruz to pick up our packs and have a bite to eat.  As we headed down the road toward Santa Cilia sometime after three in the afternoon, we could see storm clouds over the rocky ridge behind us, and could hear the approaching thunder.  We still had about 6 km to go.  As we heard a car approaching from behind, Ellen put out a thumb, and a camper van with two French rock climbers stopped to give us a ride.  They dropped us at the entrance to the small village of Santa Cilia just as the rain started to dump.  Less than five minutes later we were in the albergue, relatively dry.

We shared the albergue with a young Japanese woman who is writing a book about the camino, and a Swedish man on the way back home after two months hiking around Spain.  This was the first albergue we'd stayed in with separate rooms for men and women.

After washing up and exploring the village a bit we walked over to the village bar for something to eat, but the bartender explained that they were out of bread so he couldn't make us anything.  Seeing our long faces, he took us back to the little store area in the back, and we bought a couple of tins of sardines, a container each of asparagus and artichoke hearts, and a package of crackers.  This was our dinner.  Later, we went back to the bar for a couple of beers and great conversation with the bartender before turning in for the night.