Stage 14 - Valdesalor to Caceres (13.25km): 11/09/2014 06:47

The Plaza Mayor - Caceres

We were planning another 7:00am start but decided to get up at 6:15 when only ourselves and one other peregrino were still in bed. The others must have been very quiet as Pauline had to wake me. We were on the road at 6:45 with no great hurry on us as we had just around 11km to do again.

We had four km behind us and on our first break when Matthew and Vanessa caught up with us. Matthew was carrying a smallish guitar and, when we commented on this, Vanessa persuaded him to sing a song for us. He obliged with one of his compositions, a song about love on the Camino. Only on the Camino do such things happen. See Matthew Mutch

We continued on our way, had a break at nine with Caceres already in view, and decided to forego our ten o'clock break in the hope of finding a cafe with WiFi. It must have been near 11:00 before we were successful. There we enjoyed fresh orange juice, coffee and toast with butter and jam for €2.50 each.

When we were in the heart of the old city we asked for directions to our albergue. I should have stuck to the Satnav as I think we added another kilometre to our Camino before we found it.

Caceres is a remarkable city. It is bigger than Galway with a population of almost 100,000. Every turn you take in the old city you find another wonderful old building - a church, a palacio or just a dwelling house. As usual the churches were closed. Of the other buildings some were still residences, some hotels, some offices and at least one a museum.

The Plaza Mayor, where we are sitting now, is old but not quite as old as the area just up from it, although it does have some Roman remains in the corner.

Late in the day we bumped into Matthew and Vanessa and had dinner together.