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Day 27 | 21 August 2025 | Walking the Camino Francés
From El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de las Mulas | 19.7 km 12.2 miles
Another perfect day for walking the Camino, the temperature was 26°C and it was sunny with intermittent clouds. Nice.
Today was the second to last day of walking the Meseta and as normal it was a straight road covering the whole distance – in fact according to our guidebook it was the longest stretch of Roman road left in Spain today, and we were following the footsteps of Emperor Augustus.
Walking through the town of Reliegos we passed by a typical Adobe style house of the area (built with sun-baked mud bricks & straw) that also had a Royal Mail post box – What was striking – apart from the very fact there was a British post box? – was that its royal red colour matched perfectly with the geraniums in the window boxes.
During today’s walk we chatted with many other pilgrims – as you always do – and on reaching Mansila and after checking into our hotel we met with many again in the popular Bar Burbujas. It was nice to have met up again with Katarzyna from Poland who was walking the Camino alone.
We were joined by Katarzyna’s new found friends – and they, despite being the late afternoon all decided to continue their walk to León – another 18km! Oh! to be young.
Whilst at the bar a friendly Collie dog owned by one of the locals sitting at an adjoining table kept coming up to our table to be stroked and as we were about to leave I thought I would like to take a better picture of it – so I crouched down to take a new photo at eye level and in doing so I felt that I had stretched a calf muscle and I hobbled back to our table.
He immediately came over to me where I was sitting and said “I can help you, I will give you massage” and before I knew it he had raised my leg and started massaging my calf muscle and feet.
I could sense that Marianne behind me was enjoying my predicament and was taking photo’s … my new found friend kept saying something to me but I couldn’t hear what he was saying as he had a cigarette in his mouth – I leaned closer and then I heard the word “Relax” on repeat …which to be honest was not going to be easy. I thought I need to take a picture myself of this surreal moment and took my iPhone out of my pocket and took my own picture – from my perspective.
5 minutes later my massage ended … and I did not have any pain in my calf muscle. I offered to buy him a beer but he indicated it was not necessary “Buen Camino” he said, and with that he and his cute Collie dog went their way. Another day on the Camino.
