Camino 2013 - Day 23 - 16 December 2013

Today we walked 32km and on top of yesterday's walk I feel burned out. Tomorrow a hard uphill 30km to O'Cebreiro for which there are conflicting bad weather forecasts. This morning the ladies had breakfast in my bedroom before we headed out to a cracking -8C. We walked the 9km to Ponferrada quickly for a hot coffee in restaurant opposite the large Knights Templar castle, this was followed by 7km of suburban roads and busy highways until our lunch stop at Fuentes Nuevas, where we also met up with Jennifer who we hadn't seen for two weeks . We continued walking along country lanes until Cacabelos where we had a pilgrims wine tasting and beer in the most delightful old world hotel. The final 8km were mostly up and down hills through vineyards until we reached Villafranca and albergue Ave Fenix, which sadly was not the best choice because the hospitalero is a rude sod to anyone who didn't have dinner there. Kristina and I went to the local doctor for her many bug bites which she received during her second day on the Camino.