The doctor with the lamp

Tuesday:
We all felt better for a night's sleep in a room shared with only six other sleepers and no snorers. One of these was Nico, a doctor whose two houses, we worked out, I passed very close to in Holland and Belgium, and who walks with us the next day.

The first place we come to is the ruin of St Anton, a fine gothic church which may have been Antonine judging by the Tau crosses in the rose window. Burgos cathedral was built while, or just after, the great French cathedrals of St Denis, Amiens, Rheims etc were built, and was modelled on this new style. Moreover, Burgos became a model for the surrounding area andré doorway of this, and neighbouring churches reflects this fact.

The road now leads to a village on a hillside. Nearest to us is a perfect assembly of monastic buildings, where we stop for "the best coffee on the Camino".

From there we had a steep climb up the Meseta, which was narrow at this point and tools crossed in only a few kilometres.

We had intended to reach Fromista but this was too far and we stopped instead in Boadilla. The hostel here was truly "one of the best on the Camino". It is a converted barn, of which we choose a row of single beds (i.e. not bunks) on a upper loft. Out front is a lawn and a pool and sculpture and people lying in the sun drinking beer. The hospilladero is so laid back, he insists payment and credentials, and paying for beer can all be done later, "relax," he insists. He also serves one of the best pilgrim meals we have enjoyed: local stew and beef.

That night on our hay loft, dodging the low exposed beams, Nico make his way from bed to bed with his torch tending to the afflicted (it could easily be a scene from theCrimean War). By this point I am no longer the one most in need of his ministrations. He tells me, "Of course they are shocking to look at, but your feet are okay, I think, because new skin is forming," and I a delighted with this positive assessment.