Day 15 on the Camino Frances, Redecillo de Camino to Belorado

I started this morning on a quest for coffee. I hadn’t bought any juice or pastry the night before, so I was pretty interested in coffee and something to eat. I found that others on the trail were similarly motivated, and we went town to town in search of coffee. The villages we passed through were either not open, or didn’t have any cafes. It was overcast, so pretty good weather for walking.

I finally got to the place in Belorado where I had a reservation. The owner of this place was the first place to do blatant marketing, and left no doubt that this was an albergue. They had hostel type rooms with bunk beds, and what I had reserved was more like a hotel room with its own bathroom and two beds. They also had a cafe, and a small store that sold pilgrim type goods, like hats, hiking poles, coats, etc.

Belorado has been inhabitied since Roman times, and was fortified as an outpost between Castilla and La Rioja in the 12th century. La Rioja is a region including Belorado and Logrono, which was inhabited by two Celtic tribes when the Romans arrived in 200 bc. It became Arab territory in the 8th century, and was annexed by Castille or Navarre or Aragon over the centuries. Its mix of Celtic, Arab, and Christian peoples helped make it distinct as a province, and it is now recognized as a semi-autonomous region surrounded by the Basque region, Navarre, and Castille and Leon. Its capital is Logrono.

I finally got coffee here, and later dinner. I sat at the bar and asked the waitress some words that I wanted to learn, like “fried eggs”, “hard boiled eggs”, and “two fried eggs, over hard.” They also had a laundry, so I washed all my clothes, and took a nap.

Every little cafe in tiny towns has a juice maker for pressing fresh orange juice out of oranges. These are fascinating and the juice is delicious!