Napoleon and Ahmet same bed (Day 24)

Let me start with some bragging. Tonight I will be staying at a hotel (not albuerge!) which Napoleon stayed during his invasion of Spain in the beautiful town of Astorga. It was a palace at that time and Napolean Bonaparte stayed here during the Peninsula war of 1810 in the month of April of all the months. After 31 km, reaggravated shin splints, and a disaster of last night, I fully deserve it. The only thing missing is my Josephine which I will see in roughly 72 hours.

Yesterday, Jeff and I made a major mistake on our planning and hostel selection. Long story short, we ended up in a gas station connected hostel primarily catering to long-distance truck drivers. I would rate the rooms as generally not pristine. Normally, this pilgrim will run away with his pants on fire in a situation like this. But Jeff (who is substantially wealthy) convinced me that this is part of our journey so I roughed it out. I got to be honest, I slept in full gear. That was as far as I would go with the “ this is part of the journey” nonsense.

Today was one of most beautiful hikes of my Camino. Started at 6am well before sunrise and hiked for an hour with the moonlight. Once the sunrise, the views became spectacular with each passing hour. Arrived to Astorga around 2 pm greated by the Cathedral and the Gaudi Palace.

After the Meseta, I decided that I will not walk in solitude mode anymore as that belongs to section two of the Camino. Hiked most of the day with pilgrims I know, and spent a lot of time with Damien, an Australian sales executive whose grandfather fought in WWI in the Dardanelles (Gallipoli). He was very interested about learning anything and everything about Türkiye. About 6kms before Astorga we ran into the below table of food for pilgrims on the side of the road. Donation based, you get what you need and leave what you can.

Kms today: 31 kms

Kms total: 558.5 kms

Steps total: 158.4k Amy, 751k Ahmet

Photos from this beautiful day.