Distance: 6.4km (6.4km), time spent: 2:35 (2:35).
Weather: Overcast, but hot.
I am located at a tiny place called Sebrayo, if it can be called a place at all, about 6km before the small town I am going to spend the night in, Villaviciosa. To get here, I have taken a plane to Bilbao, bus to Oviedo and Villaviciosa, and then taxi here. I can feel that my heart beats at a slighter faster pace this time; I am back on the camino. Ahead of me lies the Camino Primitivo. As the Camino Frances was the origin of my long walks, the Camino Primitivo is the first and oldest pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela (officially, it begins in Oviedo). This is where it all began. From here, it as about 300km to Santiago de Compostela, on a trail that is supposed to be more demanding than the French way. Buen Camino!
From Bilbao. The flower dog outside the Guggenheim museum.
In the albergue in Sebrayo, a small one where you have to carry with you the food you need, there are some pilgrims that have finished walking for the day. They tell me that it is relatively few people out walking on the camino, we are here talking about Camino del Norte (Sebrayo is situated on this pilgrim route and not on the primitivo, the paths splits after Villaviciosa), in opposition to what I heard in Bilbao (there they was having trouble finding place to all the pilgrims). I get my first official stamp (sello) in my pilgrim's passport and start walking.
From Bilbao. The spider outside Guggenheim. I spent a long time in the museum, which curated works by Jeff Koons and Basquiat.
From Bilbao. Paintings under a bridge.
From Sebrayo to Villaviciosa the route mainly goes on rural gravel roads and is in no way a special affair, but my exaltation of being back on the camino more than enough weighs up for that. In my eagerness to get going I forgot to bring water, even though it is overcast it is hot. The camino however are ensuring that I am not suffering, in Tornon I pass such a place that I remember so well from my previous camino. A garage that has been rebuilt as a resting place for pilgrims, El Peregrin Cansau, where there are places to sit down at and a vending machine where I can buy water and other stuff from. There are greetings scribbled on a wall from former pilgrims.
Sebrayo. I start my second camino, Camino Primitivo, from the albergue in Sebrayo. Which looked like a nice and small albergue that I easily could have spent the night in.
El Peregrin Cansau. In Tornon, I pass this resting place for pilgrims along the Camino del Norte. I had forgotten to bring water, so this was highly appreciated.
Though the way now has steered inlands, the route are providing me with some views of the sea today, where the blue water of the Bay of Biscay are making waves in the horizon. The path crosses the highway towards Oviedo three times, something that breaks up the rural feeling a little bit. I do not meet any others on the route, except three bikers, most of the pilgrims have usually arrived at their destinations by this time. It feels good to have get going, even though it is not much of a distance I will walk today.
View towards the Bay of Biscay from the route.
Seeing the yellow arrows and scallops-markers again made me happy, here they are showing the way onwards after having crossed a road.
There was supposedly no pilgrim albergue in Villaviciosa, so I had booked a place at a hostel, Hostal Cafe del Sol, though it turns out that there is an albergue here after all. However, the hostel I am staying in is quite charming, though both the bed and floorboards are creaking somewhat, so I am satisfied. Villaviciosa is said to be the apple capital in Spain, something that explains the numerous apple-markers I find around the town. I eat dinner at a local restaurant and spend some time talking to the pilgrims that goes the north way (no one I meet are going in the same direction as me).
View from a small marshland from a bird observatory just outside Villaviciosa. It was almost dry.
Villaviciosa. A park with a small dam in the middle of the town.
This day was mostly characterized by travelling, with a long bus ride from Bilbao to Oviedo and a shorter one from there to here. The bus from Bilbao was however in one of Alsa's Supra-buses, something that meant I was served some food and drinks, an unexpected luxury on a bus ride. I walked with a smile on my mouth on my first day on the Camino Primitivo, though I feel that it is firstly tomorrow that I really begin the camino.
Villaviciosa. I had dinner at the restaurant to the left in the picture.
Pola de Siero ->
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