Total distance: 75 km. Climb: 600 m. Descent: 1,000 m.

The air is cool and the sky a bit clouded as we wind through traffic going out fo Astorga and  begin a gentle climb. After 4 km the chalk arrows direct us briefly off the highway to ride the cobblestone streets of Castrillo de los Polvazares, a town of unique stone buildings inhabited by Maragatos, a subculture of uncertain origin. Are they descendants of occupying Goths, Berbers, or Visigoths? Carthaginians gone astray? All of these have been suggested, but no one knows. As usual I fall behind, riding through the town twice, then stopping frequently along the highway to photograph new plant specimens, such as oak and Spanish lavender, and a scenic meadow. We are out of the meseta. High mountains with a few patches of snow loom ahead on the horizon. These are the Montes de León, and we will cross them today. Before long a lower pass appears, and at least two towns flanking the road are visible. When I stop to photograph them, a bright green lizard catches my eye. He is as brilliantly colored as an iguana, but smaller. There are no native iguanas in Spain, I am told, but perhaps this is a pilgrim.

The climb is ideal: an evenly pitched two-lane road that is just the right grade to match my lowest gears without straining. I pass one more couple from the Netherlands, whose bikes are heav  ily laden with camping equipment. Timing things just right, I catch up with Lindita at the tail of the pack just as we reach Foncebadón around 1:00, just as the sun is breaking through the clouds. This is a highly recommended lunch spot, but the doors have not yet opened. Dean is lying in the grass and has been waiting for some time, as have John-Giebler and Loreto, who has the van today. The attraction is La Taberna de Gaia, a “cocina medieval.” Before long, Enrique, a burly man with a full beard, arrives and lets us into the establishment. Loreto informs us that this man built the structure himself, crafted the furniture and also operates the restaurant. The interior of the stone building is cool and rather dark, illuminated only by the light from a skylight, one window and two open doors. Enrique lights a few candlesticks that sit on massive bases of candle drippings – virtual stalagmites of wax. The candles add to the primitive atmosphere, but don’t provide much illumination. On the walls hang crude farm implements. The menu is limited, but very good:

Trinchado Medieval

1. Revuelto de verduras y heuvo (scrambled eggs with apple, almond and peppers)

2. Churrasco de Ternera con escolta y en Pan de Taja (barbecued veal steak on the bone with french fries, served on a plate of fried bread)

This place makes medieval life seem quite appealing. Forks and steak knives are provided, and I resist the temptation to gnaw on the bone, holding it in my bare hands, then throw it over my  shoulder. We all quench our thirst with bottles of Mahou lager. Although a large midday meal  is typical in Spain, the drawback for us cyclists in stuffing ourselves is that we won’t have time  for a siesta. We have to get back on our bikes and climb a steep grade for another few kilometers. Waiting for us at an elevation of 1,500 m. is the famed Cruz de Fierro: a small cross atop a tall pole that is set in a pile of rocks probably dating back to Celtic and Roman times. (The pole and cross were added much more recently.) Modern pilgrims continue to add rocks, decorated stones and other offerings to the pile. John-G, Dean and I stop to inspect while Lindita rides on ahead. It is finally the time to remove from my fanny pack the one-pound rock that I brought from the California coast and carried across the continent and across the ocean in my luggage and then wore as ballast around my waist while pedaling about 625 km. I feel like singing a spiritual as I lay down my burden. My load feels lighter. I am free of all cares.

The lightly traveled road winds along the ridge for the next 8 km, offering spectacular views of rolling, multi-colored mountains in all directions. I stop to photograph a pilgrim resting by the  side of the road. (Here there seems to be no separate walking path.) He is from France. I say a  few words to him in French, and he replies with an account of his ascent in speech I can’t quite understand, gesturing toward distant points in the unobstructed panorama of rolling mountains. Not much farther down the road I stop to inspect a rustic building with ill-fitting stone walls and a slate roof. A hand-crafted wooden sign reads BIENVENIDOS PEREGRINOS in medieval-looking red letters. This is the most remote pilgrim hospice I have seen. I stop to get a passport stamp, which identifies the place as the Refugio Manjarin. The CCH indicates that the current hospice dates back only to the 1990s, but that there was a hospice at this site during the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, most traces of the original town have disappeared.

Just beyond Manjarin the road takes a precipitous drop. Unfortunately, the road is a bit patchy and the curves too sharp for me to ride comfortably at high speed. I am riding behind Dean, who flies ahead on the steep slope, while I pump my brakes hard to keep my speed from getting too far above 60 kph. After 3 or 4 km of very steep descent, the grade decreases to something more manageable and the curves widen out. John-Giebler holds just the right pace for my taste, and I tail him for some distance, following his line through the turns. The road takes us down farther than this morning’s starting elevation, and the temperature grows noticeably warmer.

After about 12 km of high-speed downhill riding we come to Molinaseca on the Rio Meruelo. Dean, John and I take a short break. John-G buys a kilogram of cherries from a street vendor and enjoy them in the shade of a tree, watching children play with inflatable rafts in the river in front of an old Romanesque bridge.

The afternoon is growing late when we reach Ponferrada, the most significant site of the day. We stop for a quick look at the exterior of the 13^th c. castle built by the Knights Templar. Assumi  ng that you know little more than I did about this famous group, here is a brief history. The Order traces its origins to nine crusading knights left to defend the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in 1118 (which accounts for the adjective Templar, meaning “of the temple”). According to CCH, “During the 12^th century the growing Order waged war within Spain against the Saracens. . . . By the mid-13^th c. some 20,000 Knights Templar were active in almost every part of Europe.”

The Templars completed their castle in Ponferrada in 1282, but occupied it for only a few decades. By this time “the immense wealth, political power, and seemingly secretive ways of the Knights Templar aroused both fear and envy.“ In an ongoing power struggle between handsome King Philippe (“le Bel”) of France and ugly Pope Boniface VIII (“nothing but eyes and tongue in a wholly putrefying body,” according to one source cited by Jack Hitt in Off The Road)  the Templars became the targets of both. The king issued an edict of arrest in 1307. Using tactics pioneered by the Inquisition, the Templars were forced to confess to fabricated charges. According to Hitt, King Philippe’s men:

 “stuffed rags in the mouths of some men and left them to starve. They tied them to the rack. The inquisitors hog-tied the defendants’ limbs and dragged them up and down hills. They branded them with hot irons. Other knights were submitted to the strappado, in which the victim had his hands tied behind his back and then hanged by the wrists with weights attached to his feet or genitals. In other jails a Templar’s feet were rubbed with animal fat and simply set on fire. At one trial a knight arrived on stumps that concluded at his shins.”

Ultimately, the Pope dissolved the Order in 1312. The last surviving Templars were burned at the stake by King Philippe in 1314. Maybe medieval times weren’t so good after all.

Some people still believe that the Templars brought the Holy Grail back from the Holy Land and hid it here in their castle. Needless to say, it has never been found. Unfortunately, time does not permit Dean and John and me to enter the castle and participate in the search, so we ride on. As it turns out, navigating our way through the modern streets of Ponferrada is enough of a challenge for us. Early in the day when Maria Elena marked the course, some road construction required her to follow a detour into opposing lanes of traffic and mark the chalk arrows there. By the time the three of us come along, the construction has been completed and some of the arrows have been effaced. After turning back from one false road and following intuition for several blocks we discover the trail of chalk arrows and resume our ride.

With a late afternoon burst of energy I pull away from Dean and John, fighting a headwind among farms and vineyards. I arrive in Cacabelos alone.