Sunday, April 19 in Ponferrada it is cloudy with sunny periods. It was a cool start to the day, about 5 degrees. It should climb to about 16 today should the sun stay out. I left the albergue close to 8 this morning. It was my first night sleeping without earplugs. We were in a room of 4 and only women. NO SNORING! What a nice change. I walked to a café where it said it had Wifi. Unfortunately it didn't work. Oh well, they also had fresh squeezed orange juice and the biggest chocolate croissant ever. I had no intention of having one, but hey, you only live once. 

The kind of croissant that you need a knife and fork for. Unreal. I ate part of it for breakfast and the rest for a snack a few hours later. 

I arrived at the Albergue at the same time as the hostess at 11:00. Surprisingly enough four Germans arrived just after me. That's very early for pilgrims to be finishing the walk for the day. Anyway, our hostess, who speaks French (she's married to a French-Canadian from Québec) is a real sweetheart. We drop off our bags and I head out to the old part of town. It's a little easier to walk without my "mochilla" backpack. I return at 1:00 and I get signed in. We get a room for 4, two sets of bunk beds. It's bigger than most four person rooms. As I'm booking in, Rémi and Monique's bags arrive. Ron decided to carry his even though the walk down the mountain would be tough. 

Ron, Rémi, and Monique arrivé at 3:00. It has been a long day for them. Rémi's shins are on fire. Monique's heel tendinitis is a little swollen. Ron has a sore ankle as well. We get ice from our hostess and were good to go. We end up staying at the Albergue as the ladies will cook supper for us. There are two choices for starters and main dish. We all choose the vegetable cream soup and a quiche with salad. It is all home made and very good. Today there even a nice choice for dessert. Three of us have home made apple pie and Ron chooses cheese with a sauce. After supper we head for the old part of town as the three of them have yet to see it. We walk around take pictures, visit the church and Rémi has a gelato. We return around 9:00. We go to our room and get caught up with emails and Facebook. Rémi contacts Maurice through FaceTime. It has worked very well to stay in touch. We finally crash around 10:00. I should have taken a picture of the bunk beds. They are by far the tallest that we've seen. It's noce for the person below as there is lots of head room. For the first time in the Albergues, Ron will be on top tonight. My foot is giving me too much trouble to try to climb up and down the ladder. Tonight is also a first in that we are told not to use our sleeping bags. They wash the sheets daily and have nice big blankets to keep warm.  No other pictures today, but there were some yesterday  of the same place.