22nd May 2024 Villafranca del Bierzo to Las Herreiras

We decided to have the buffet breakfast this morning and it was quite delicious.  Toast with eggs then a bit of toast with jam plus a coffee and orange juice had us ready to hit the road.

The weather forecast wasn’t great – it was going to be another day where the rain gear was probably going to be on and off all day.  While it keeps you dry it can also make you wet as both of us are prone to sweating once we are walking and Gore-Tex does not breathe. 

The walk out of Villafranca was quite pretty as there is a park towards the end of town, and it was full of beautiful flowers and freshly trimmed and shaped hedges making a maze.  We headed down past one of the churches and there was a man scraping the moss from the outside wall – a job like the Sydney Bridge we thought. The bridge over the river was quite picturesque and we wandered along the river for some time and were amazed, once again, at the amount of water that pours down these rivers.

Wet weather gear on an off over the course of the morning until eventually we decided to just take it off and, of course, within a few minutes it was raining fairly heavily so we stopped once again and only put our jackets on – the bottoms could just get wet!

The cherry man from my last visit was still at La Portela de Valcarce so a purchase of a bag was a necessity, and they were delicious!  We continued until we arrived at Las Herrerias and found our accommodation.  They had been communicating with us and told us where to find the key as it was their day off! – they would see us in the morning for breakfast and we could pay them then.

Showers and clothes washing followed before we headed next door to the café/bar for something to eat and ended up talking to two lovely ladies from Melbourne; Jayne and Jules and stayed for some hours before heading back up to our room.  The view was just lovely, and we headed out to the balcony for a while before the cold drove us back inside.