21 September 2022 – Astorga & Las Medulas

Miles driven today = 95

Total Miles to date = 1,332

So firstly a quick update to yesterday's post.  We put some relatively posh attire on for the first time on this trip and wandered back into Leon's old town at about 7:30.  After studying the menu at a number of establishments we settled on one called El Altar which was down a side street near the Plaza Mayor.  I picked the squid ink paella but Lisa definitely won with her Galacian octopus and doesn't she look pleased with herself about it.  With a very pleasant bottle of vino blanco the bill came to a little north of €60.

We stopped off at a bar in the Plaza for another glass before making our way back to the van past the Cathedral, which was nicely illuminated.

I was a little worried that with the aire being next to a major roundabout and opposite a building site we would be in for an early, rude awakening but I was in fact woken by the church bells chiming 8am.

We got ourselves underway and joined the dual carriageway heading west but this quickly became a toll road, so Google Maps diverted us onto the N120 trunk road for the rest of the journey to Astorga.

Whilst driving we saw dozens of hikers with back packs and walking poles strolling along beside the road and all heading towards Santiago de Compostela on the long distance Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.  We've been seeing signs for the Camino and a sprinkling of backpackers ever since we were in France but their numbers are much greater here.  It's reckoned that up to 100,000 people attempt the Camino every year but this is still way down on the 500,000 who apparently used to do it back in the 11th and 12th centuries when Santiago was third behind Jerusalem and Rome in the list of sacred Christian sites.

On reaching Astorga we found no room in the central car park for our 7.4 metre motorhome but we did find plenty of space just a few minutes walk out of town.

The town has a Cathedral so I guess it's technically a City.

However we were here for yet another of that Antoni Gaudi fella's creations.

The Palacio Espiscopal or Bishop's Palace was designed by the architect in 1886.  The exterior looks much like a Disney castle.

Inside it is even more spectacular.

On the ground floor is a museum of local iconography and a history of the Camino de Santiago going back to its origins in the 10th Century.

The first floor houses the main Chapel with exquisite stained glass windows.

There are also a number of meeting rooms where all sorts of important eclesiastical decisions were no doubt made.

Up on the 2nd floor is a biographical exhibit of Gaudi with a time line of his creations.  There is also a model of the Palace and the Cathedral next door.

Then down a giddying spiral staircase to the  basement where there is a museum of Roman finds including coins, a mosaic and numerous carvings.  All that for €6 a head I thought was pretty decent value.

Once back in the van we decided to burn west along the A6 dual carriageway for an hour.  Leaving the flatlands behind and climbing back into more undulating countryside.  We bypassed Ponferrada.  I quite fancied having a look at the Knights Templar castle they have there but Lisa wasn't up for negotiating our way in and out of another largish town so we rolled on by.

A little further on we pulled off the highway and meandered our way through to the village of Las Medulas.

It's a quaint little place, tucked away up in the hills but that isn't the reason people come here in their droves.

2,000 years ago this place was literally a gold mine.

I'm not sure how the Romans found out about it but roughly 100 metres below ground level in these hills was a strata of rock which was rich in gold.  To get to it they would use slave labour to dig mineshafts into the rock.  Water was then chanelled into these shafts and the pressure would literally split the hills apart.  The process was known as "ruina montium" - the wrecking of mountains.  

What we see here are the small pieces of the original hills which were left once they had finished the process.  In 200 years of mining here, between 5,000 and 6,000 kilograms of gold was extracted making it the primary source of gold for the entire Roman Empire.

This huge cave was formed as part of the mining process.  Lisa for scale.

We noticed that on some of the rock faces huge flocks of what we assumed to be sand martins had gathered.

Also wherever the ivy was flowering there was a swarm of bees gathering nectar.

It was another cloudless afternoon with temperatures in the high 20s but thankfully the 4km path around Las Medulas is largely shaded by the most ancient chestnut trees.  They have festivals round these parts in November to celebrate the harvesting of the chestnuts.

Back at a village taverna for a quick lemonade, it was time to start looking for somewhere to lay over for the night. The nearest campsite is about a 30 minutes' drive away, but we noticed on the park4night app that some people have recently stayed right here in the Las Medulas car park without any trouble, so we are going to give it a go.  

We were all on our own, athough an ancient motorhome has just positioned itself at the top of the car park.  I don't think they will bother us.  I certainly hope that the residents of the cemetery next door don't either!

22 September 2022 - Lugo and on to the Galician coast