Cervera to Tornabous, May 5

Here are a couple of bonus pics from Cervera.

Today's stage was mostly along gravel roads, making for very pleasant walking.  As we've moved through this broad valley area since descending from Montserrat, the crops have shifted from mostly grains (I think wheat, but am not certain) to fruit orchards.










Our halfway point today was the city of Tarrega.  We stopped for a sandwich, and a few blocks after resuming lost the trail.  One block we were following our trusty yellow markings, then they were gone.  We went a couple of blocks in one direction, then in another, then in a third, hoping to be back on the track, but no luck.  Asked folks in sidewalk tables at a bar, but no one knew where the camino was.  Finally found an elderly man on one street who recognized a couple of the places in our printed directions and was able to get us going in the right direction.  We lost about a half hour, but we were back on the trail.

The pic of Dan standing next to what looks like graffiti is of a trail marker: Cami de San Jaume is Catalan for the Camino de Santiago.  960 km is the most direct route; our plan (subject to change, of course) is somewhat longer.


Bright orange poppies are a very common weed here.  One fallow field in between crops was filled with them.

Other than larger towns, most of the places we pass through are very small and have no visitor services at all.  We'd decided to make for the small town of Tornabous, because our materials indicated that it had some sort of rural accommodations.  We didn't know what, if anything, we'd find, nor whether we'd even be able to locate the one in our guide.  I thought the odds were decent we'd be laying out sleeping bags in a field.

One of the lessons we've learned along the Camino is that Saint James takes care of pilgrims (the nuns in Cervera made sure we understood this).  Sure enough, as we were entering the village, there was one of the listed rural accommodations, which turned out to be a thoroughly modern and delightful B&B sort of place.  We were given a large room with adjacent kitchen and dining area, and an outside deck for sitting.  There was also a covered pool, but we were too tired to use it (see pic).

After washing up we walked into town and found the local bar for dinner.  It seemed that everyone from town stopped by for a beer at some point.  Everyone is friendly to pilgrims; few pass through on this camino and even fewer stop.  People want to know where we're going, where we started from, and how long we plan to take.  For some reason most assume we're French, and are surprised to learn we're from the US.  Most we've talked with have never met an American on this Camino.