Even though we woke up barely 10 kilometers from Palencia (not to be confused with Plasencia where we were 14 stages ago or Valencia on the east coast) this morning, we decided to skip this place. It's supposed to be a beautiful city that is definitely worth a visit, but the route we are taking to Burgos, the one from Charles the Fifth's last ride, curved off a bit before the city yesterday and the north is starting to beckon in the meantime. We don't really have a schedule, but we do want to get to the Pyrenees before it gets too hot, so we'd better keep up the pace. And we will pass through Burgos, which should be a gem as well, so we still have another beautiful city to visit.
It's clear this morning when we leave the hotel and the sun has just risen. From the hotel we can choose between two routes: one along a path right next to the motorway, which is very busy at this time of day, or a route that is slightly longer, but for a large part runs a bit further away from the motorway. This does require us to walk a stretch of about 4.5 kilometers along a major road. Hmm... we went for the latter option so we could walk on quieter paths for at least part of the way. But this early in the morning, even this option turns out to be no fun. We walk past petrol stations, sheds and fields.
We cross the railway and motorway over large bridges and have to be very careful with the traffic again. Spaniards are economical with the brakes and generous with the throttle and often swerve only at the last moment. But eventually we can get off the road, onto a dirt road running between the meadows. It heads back towards the motorway, but we still have 3.5 kilometers before we get there. We enjoy the flowers on the roadside and in the fields. We walk through a wide river valley of the Pisuerga, bordered on either side by low hills with some patches of forest and more often bare rock. As in many places, every form of transport, motorway, railway, canal and our route, uses this flat strip. For us, the route could also have run through the hills, but there are hardly any paths and roads there. So we just enjoy them from a distance, because they do look beautiful! There are many small irrigation canals here in the plains, which are branches of large canals. They are usually higher than the road, and where they cross the road, they stop on one side, and continue on the other. Through a funnel, the water flows into an underground pipe. This passes under the road and the water comes back up on the other side with considerable force and flows further. There is no pump involved, it's a cool and convenient system.
We walk towards the motorway again, cross it and follow it for a while on a road right next to it. Only after more than 10 kilometers we deviate slightly from it and because there are bushes in between, we have the feeling of being back in nature. That's a lot nicer. Somehow all that huffing and puffing distracts you from your surroundings. It's beautiful, but only here, a bit away from the motorway, can we really experience that again. We are almost 12 kilometers on the road and find a nice spot for a break, in a side road off the larger path. We have a view of a beautifully dilapidated shed in a wheat field coloured red with poppies. Utterly rural! That red colour for poppies isn't obvious here, by the way. We have already seen white ones, pink and orange ones, very large ones and small ones with only four small leaves. Never knew there were so many different ones. After the break, we walk pretty quickly into Torquemada. On the outskirts many little houses are built half under the earth, with a thick layer of soil on the roof. They are old houses that are now, it seems at least, mainly used as barns. These must be some of the first eco-houses! It's quite a big village with another imposing sand-coloured church and a nice long sandstone bridge. After the village, we walk for kilometers again in the tranquillity of the Spanish countryside. On the top the hills there are windmills everywhere. Whilst walking on the long paths, we have time to count them: there are at least 96 of them, so they have worked to become CO2 neutral. Near the town of Cordovilla la Real, we cross the Pisuerga again via one of those beautiful, almost medieval-looking bridges. There follows one more long stretch on asphalt, 6.5 kilometers to the hotel. It's a wide two-lane road and it's hard on the feet, but we almost get used to it. And luckily it's a beautiful road, between the hills and past beautiful old oak trees. We see another deer leap across the road and there are numerous flowers on the verge again. Finally, we walk a short distance along the motorway and then we are there. It drizzled a bit in the final kilometers, but besides that we kept it dry today again. By now it's noticeable that the north of Spain is a lot busier and more hectic than the more southern areas. More roads, more agriculture, more towns and of course that also brings more crowds. Fortunately, the scenery is beautiful, but we hope we can stay a bit further away from the busy roads than today and yesterday. Maybe we should take another close look at the route...
