Day 23 Villaviciosa to Pola De Siero 18.4ml 2535ft – Total 321.7ml 37614ft

It was quite a tough day today, possibly not helped by the fact that I got up at 4:00am this morning to use the bathroom and noticed that the big greasy stain caused by the tuna I didn’t order still existed on my 2nd pair of trousers that I had just washed and hung up to dry. Well, I couldn’t just leave it could I ? So I gave them a more thorough wash and then spent quite some time trying to dry them with an intermittently working hair dryer. I don’t know how many of you have tried drying a pair of trousers with a hair dryer (not many I suspect) but it’s not really very successful, especially at 4:30amAnyway we had breakfast at the the hotel (have you got any croissants? in 25 mins, can we have the buffet breakfast then ? in 25 mins, etc, etc)We eventually got away and it was all uphill on this new route we had chosen. Nice green paths most of it but uphill green paths. Not a cafe or a bar in site for the vast majority of the day and we only saw one other pilgrim en-route. We had arranged to meet up with Matthew (Gerald’s son) at about 15:30 in Pola de Siero but we could see that was slowly slipping away. Luckily Matthew was flexible in his timings and we eventually met about 16:45.It was good to meet Matthew, especially as he explained that the Catholic church backed Franco during the civil war and, quite understandably, they haven’t been forgiven for this and therefore have very little standing or authority in the North. This explains so much to me about what’s missing on this Camino.We’ve actually managed to get in the Pilgrims Albergue here in Pola so that means it’s lights out at 10:00 therefore I’m going to finish here and just add some pictures before I go.