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Day 24 | 18 August 2025 | Walking the Camino Francés
From Villalcázar de Sirga to Calzadilla de la Cueza | 23 km 14.3 miles
Finally the Heatwave is over!
So nice that those daily temperatures of between 34-38°C for the past 15 days are now behind us.
Today’s temperature was a wonderful cool 27°C.
We are still on the Meseta and today’s walk would be flat and in a straight line along an old Roman road with endless wheat fields that had been harvested. There was one stretch of 17.3 km where no facilities were available apart from a Café Môvil (Food truck).
A couple of kilometres before we reached the food truck (which turned out to be a permanent fixture run by a couple that had been trading for many years) we encountered the owner stopping pilgrims and asking them to choose his place, the second one on the route. The reason being that this summer someone had set up a food truck roughly 250 metres ahead of his – thus becoming the first stop pilgrims came across, it drew away much of his business.
I could understand his and his wife’s frustration, so we walked past the first vendor and chose to have breakfast at his place instead. It was good.
Reaching Calzadilla de la Cueza we checked into our Albergue and went to the bar where we took a table next to a group of local men playing cards. Their voices became increasing louder and soon fists were being slammed onto the table. The tension was palpable … and then suddenly it was all laughter and warm embraces. We understood nothing.
I noticed on the bar TV they were showing the latest news about the wildfires that were spreading across Spain and we moved tables to watch it.
For the past couple of days we had been following the news of the devastating wildfires – the worst Spain had ever seen – and then we saw on the news that ahead of us: The Spanish authorities had closed the Camino!
