Day 26 hospital de Obiga to Astorga. 17 km a little up and down very pleasant walk.

We left Albergue Verde after 8:00. Julio and Lisette there to collect Marie and I. We stopped in 3 km for the first of two coffees and met a gardener at the cross above the town of San Justo de la Bega. He told us the story of the bishop who fled the heresy of Astorga and paused to dust his trousers of even the dust of Astorga.

He turned out to be a priest who had had a mission in Uganda in the sixties and returned to Spain for health reasons. He now tends a garden area around the cross. Julio asked for a benediction and he countered Julio do not confuse faith with magic. We together recited the Lord's Prayer and he blessed us. I was moved. Perhaps I do want to believe in magic.

Lunch of pizza in Justo then to Astorga and the municipal albergue. 5€. Room of four luxury.