Etapa 7 to Valladolid.

In me is one more day? Should do because 7 days isn't so bad with the physical challenges since the mountains (weather and body)? Booked two nights in Valladolid anyway to be a tourist in the rain... Slept pretty well after the fridge stopped leaking water: I turned it off due to the continual vibrations but it decided to defrost... The room was a little damp but not particularly cold. Now I am across the park having a cortido after tostados con tomate pondering my day forward as rain is forecast in the very region I am walking through and on the seventh day I am quite tired, surely the seventh day was a restday?

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On the final leg of today's suggest Etapa and completely bored of pine forests/plantations: this area reminds me of Les Landes in Gascony, but perhaps not quite as relentlessly uninspiring? Left foot is playing up once more, but so nearly at the end of the walk so I'll manage - 5 hours straight, almost, with one village since Coca, which I tried to hitch all along the road between it and Asunción almost failing, walking most of the way, before a kind worker returned and brought me the short distance to begin the Etapa properly at the suggested starting point.

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Nursing a slight hangover at the same bar/café which is attached to The Book Factory Hostel. The room got full around 3 am with revelers using it as a place to kip: and I hate that! It shouldn't be allowed really, because they're not traveling! Snoring too. But it's what it is: coffee solves everything! Argentina won on penalties and Brazil didn't. And that was never a penalty: how soft has football become? It's a contact sport for over paid prima donna's!

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Seven days on the Camino de Madrid - the final pilgrimage of 2022. One whole day in Valladolid to 'sight see' oh the humanity of it... The façade of San Paolo iglesia looks an achievement of creativity I've never seen on any other church (well Wells in Somerset has a fine façade too). I think Valladolid is the second university founded in Spain after Salamanca...

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In Alcazarén I tried to withdraw some funds from an ATM to pay for the bus journey, but the machine rumbled without providing any funds, good job really as I didn't want to pay the €4 commission, so I hitched to Valladolid a little along the main road to the motorway and he dropped me outside the central park after giving me a little potted history of Renault in the town!