I woke at 5:30 a.m. About an hour later, I headed downstairs to the mudroom and filled out a transport slip to ship my bag to Frómista, 21 miles west. My shoes, still muddy and wet from yesterday’s rain, were now muddy, wet, and cold. I grabbed my daypack, devoured a pain au chocolat, croissant, and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and hit the road.
As I walked through town, the 40-degree streets were shadowed, with no sun to warm them. The air was cold enough that I could see my breath, and I regretted beginning the day in shorts. Once I left town, the sun came around, easing the chill. The first two miles of trail ran beside a one-lane country road. The trail was muddy from the yesterday’s rains, so I walked on the road to keep my the mud from clumping on the soles of my shoes.
At the four-mile mark, the road curved right, revealing a large hill topped with a fortress. Beyond it was a 500-foot ridge with a 12.5% grade, the day’s only tough climb. I summited in about ten minutes. The view from the top showed lush green fields stretching endlessly. At the base of the ridge, I checked my hiking app. Only 12 miles remained to Frómista, with no significant climbs left.
Around 11:00 AM, a food truck appeared. I bought a slice of ham and onion Sicilian pizza and a Coke for €6.50.
At the twelve-mile mark, I crossed the Río Pisuerga on an eleven-arch bridge. The bridge, known as Puente de Itero del Castillo, dates to the 11th century.
The final five miles of the day followed the towpath of an old transportation canal. The locks at Frómista were replaced with a dam, suggesting the canal’s main use now is irrigation. A novelty canal boat runs along the corridor a couple of times a day, but waiting two hours to skip a five-mile walk didn’t seem worth it. I kept walking.
I checked into the municipal hostel in Frómista around 4 p.m. I went to the local grocery store and bought a can of Pringles. While snacking on the bench out front, a guy, Craig, introduced himself and asked to sit down. Craig is a university professor from Indiana and a former Army infantry officer. After some conversation, I pointed to a poster on a pole nearby. It advertised an organ and Gregorian chant concert at 6 p.m. at one of the churches in town. Craig was interested, so we walked over and sat through the performance.
After the concert, we crossed the street to a restaurant for burgers and fries. We spent three hours talking about the future of U.S. foreign policy and imagining how much generative AI would change the world. At 9:30 p.m., we walked back to the hostel for the night.
Brandon Hikes 