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Part 1      Part 2                     Santiago de Compostela - Part 3
Enough of the fantasy. Now its back to the highway, today it is back to the National Route N120, fast, straight and the wind behind us. Lunch break was in Sahagun  where  we met many pilgrims outside the Refuge. Mostly walkers and mountain bikers of many nationalities. The one thing they all had in common was a sense of timelessness-no one in a hurry, some not altogether sure how long they were travelling or when they would reach Santiago. The cross on Cruz de Fer Certainly the Tour of Spain that we were attempting is out of character with the spirit of Compostela. Our  emphasis is on the physical and sybaritic rather than the spiritual and comtemplative. Perhaps we will learn ---slow down and smell the roses!!    A vignette that I carry  from Sahagun; Picture this old guy, sixtyish, squat, heavy and short of breath complete with backpack and staff  hobbling up the hill to the refuge, a retired church, with his wife also backpacked and very overweight and with one leg heavily bandaged clinging to his arm.  They were getting nowhere fast, but then, what has speed got to do with it.  Determination and faith was getting them there. Oremus !. This evening we reached  Leon, a big city with a rough reputation.  We struck a car on a roundabout, causing some damage, and spent the next few hours unsnarling that one. Three cheers for the end of Leon. Villadonga, a small village outside Leon, boasted a  wayside bar where we got beds for the night.	The food was good with fresh fish, Rufina, on the menu. Next morning  we se out in bright sunlight, drove to Astorga to commence cycling from there. Astorga  is tourist territory whose main attraction is the Cathedral  of the Mother of God, now closed  and utilised as a museum containing many priceless treasures, the loot from the Indies and Americas. The morning was spent sightseeing and then back to business. We are now into the mountains, the climbing starts here, its down in the gears for a steady haul for 10 miles or more.  Beautiful panoramas bathed in warm sun  certainly lessened the pain of the climb. The Cruz de Fer sited at the top of the mountain features a giant cross .The tradition is for Pilgrims to leave stones which they had carried from home as a symbol of leaving their sins behind at the foot of the cross. The descent from the Cross was a 9 miles series of steep gradients and hairpins. A nerve wracking sector which left us with numbing arms and wrists.  "Many dead cyclists" is a direct quote from the Guide Book describing the route.  Creidim an Leabhar. Half way down we came across a village of one narrow street, cobbled and with a rain drain down the center,  a cyclists  nightmare. We stopped here at the village café for coffee and omlettes.                                                               Molinscea, a beautiful scenic village, at the foot of the mountains was our destination but the hotel was full and we were directed to Ponferrada, a business town where we got a good hotel which did  a "Pilgrims dinner ", very good and reasonable. The Knights Templar castle now in restoration is the main attraction in Ponferrada. It was the starting point for many of the Crusades to the Holy Land. We met a Frenchman from St Tropez travelling solo on a heavily laden mountain bike.	He had the ability to get ahead of us every time we passed him. He had put much time into studying  the routes and was making great progress, although he was in no hurry. A big  proportion of  pilgrims choose to travel solo. The Pazo de Raxoi It has its advantages, no rows, no pacesetters, no waiting.  Stop and start as you like. Also you can meet plenty of company at days end in the Refuges to maintain sanity and socialise. Our route today took us through the mountains to O Cebreiro. Tough, hot cycling but well compensated for by the scenery and the route climbing up a narrow sweltering valley into the Cantabrian Mountains. Spoiling it all was a motorway under construction on sky reaching towers away above our heads. Our trail end was O Cebreiro, a mountain village at 1400 mtrs. The place was deserted until the 1930's when an enterprising parish priest revitalised the community and established home industries and refurbished the dwellings to cater for pilgrims. It is now thriving but unspoiled. Our bedroom, over the barroom, looked out over the mountains with the rolling clouds away down below us shading the valleys. Dinner consisted of the inevitable fish,  Hake this time and vino. The native music practised in the village on instruments akin to tin whistles was very tuneful. This place would make a great center for mountain walking.