The full name is Villafranca Montes de Oca. There are lots of Villafrancas all over Spain; it just refers to the French Community living there in earlier times.
Back to last night. Staying in my hotel in Belorado were lots of Aussie voices. They turned out to be a group from Albany travelling under the auspices of Rawtravel. They had walked 21 kms that day: twice as much as me.
Since the hotel didn't cook dinner I went in search of the Quatro Cantones Albergue, which according to my guide book had the best food on town. Waiting for their restaurant to open, I had a look round. Amazingly they had a swimming pool and it was warm, enclosed like a greenhouse.
I enjoyed a meal with 2 Irishmen and their cousin from the US. They were all in high spirits, though their pale skin was getting sunburnt. I had a mixed salad, paella and a delicious flan: a Pilgrims meal for €11.50. The US cousin told us he had just come from helping in the Florida flood relief. He worked for the Emergency Services and his particular job was to organise the rubbish collection which was huge! Another guy staying there was from Mexico with the earthquake disaster. The houses next to his had collapsed and he was not allowed to go into his own house in case it fell down too. I suppose coming on the Camino was a better option for him.
Monday morning and I had to sort out my phone charging problem. My landlady took a photo of the connection I needed, easier than trying to explain in Spanish in a shop. No shops would be open till 10.00am, she said, so I just had to hang about in the lounge reading about the latest discoveries at Atapuerca. Then she decided to phone a few places to ask if they had what I needed. She tracked a place down on the edge of town, a place like Bunnings. Fortunately it was on the Camino so I didn't have to go out of my way. However, I had lost two hours which meant I had to walk through the hottest part of the day and only arrived at Villafranca at 3.00pm.
Villafranca has a popular truck stop at the bottom of the hill. These enormous trucks have been shooting past at high speed all day, as the Camino path was still mostly to one side of the busy road going to Burgos. When I was in this hotel before, I left in a snowstorm but today it is 23 degrees: hot and sunny. This is the first Camino I've done in such hot weather, day after day and the same is forecast for the next two weeks!
Enjoyed seeing the truck stop. Hot weather presumably means you will be setting out early.
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