Molinaseca to Cambrianos

June 5th - Molinaseca to Cambrianos
I'd forgotten what a lovely little spot Molinaseca is. It seems to a happening little spot with quite a few restaurants, bars and places to stay although it doesn't have a huge population - technically just under 1000 people. The houses in this area are typical of the area with their overhanging balconies, many of which are loaded with bright flowers. Roses seem to grow very well here and decorate almost every house and yard- huge red, yellow, pink and mixed- and most of them are the climbing varities. They're very beautiful and their perfume is wonderful! Almost everyone here seems to grow a vegetable garden. There appear to be community plots as there are often  a dozen or so gardens all lined up in the same areas. Every spare plot has a garden in it and the vegetables are looking lush and appear to be growing well. So many times as we are walking I have noticed the soil here. It seems so deep compared with ours. We have this little skimpy bit of soil that seems to need a lot of help just to grow anything, but here they turn over almost 3 feet of soil in the spring to prepare for planting. It looks rich but it's the depth of it that impresses me.

We made our way out of Molinaseca in the morning, conscious that even though they were feeling much better, a quarter of our knees might not want to travel too far. Ponferrada was only about 8 kilometers away and we decided to get ourselves there and examine our options. So we pounded our way, mostly on pavement to Ponferrada and stopped in at the albergue which has a nice courtyard and a building outside of the albergue that has solar heated showers, new bathrooms and a wash area, all of which can be used before the albergue opens. We needed to find the post office and decided that we would walk to the other side of town and find a place to stay to make our exit easier. Ponferrada has a stunning example of a Knights Templar castle which we thought we would get back to see but as it happened we didn't.

We walked and walked to the other side of town in the heat. Ponferrada has a population of almost 70,000 and has outskirts that go on for kilometers. Eventually we ended up 5 kilometers out of Ponferrada in a bedroom community called Cambrianos. We stayed in a casa rural called El Almendro de Maria which was just lovely. It was a good-sized place with several other bedrooms upstairs but we were the only ones in it.  It had a good-sized coutyard, and a nice living room whe we could sit. The kitchen was well-stocked and there was breakfast food as well as other snacks that we could help ourselves to. We had our own bathroom which is always a treat and we could use the washing machine for our dirty clothes. It was really nice just to have some peace and quiet and so much clean space to ourselves. The town came alive for awhile between about 5:00 and 8:00 and we were in bed shortly after that. Very refreshing.