Day 17 on the Camino Frances, Burgos to Hornillos del Camino

This day started by hiking through the grounds of the cathedral, and through the outskirts of the city of 180,000. The pace of the day makes it so that one is out on the trail close to dawn, and the air was cool and the light was beautiful.

The route today went alongside some hiways, and through the towns of Tardajos and Rabe de las Calzadaz, and on to Hornillos del Camino. The route from Rabe to Hornillos was a country road through wheat and barley fields, and it was super hot. Luckily I had a survival beer in Tardajos. Shown below is the road to Hornillos, a real ankle twister. Thank Gog we had some cloud cover. Hornillos has about 50 stone houses, a one room market, one street, and 4 albergues, and 17 residents. The houses would have fallen over 200 years ago, but being made of stone and sandwiched between neighboring houses, they can’t fall down. About every other house was for sale, and I bet cheap. There was a Roman castro at the edge of town. A castro is a hill fort, often from pre-Roman times.

I stayed at a place run by a fellow who said his daughter was married to Charlie Sheen, and had introduced the Sheens to the Camino history. His mother had a bit part in the movie “the Way”, for about 2 seconds. The route from Burgos to Hornillos was the start of open wheat country called the Meseta. This region is sparsely populated, and towns are few and far between. I thought about that over dinner. This village used to be a farming village. It is still surrounded by wheat and rye, which is now farmed by 2 guys on tractors.