Another fairly windy night, but no rain.  Had a nice breakfast of leftover paella, then went for another ride to the east.  Headed up into the national park that’s across the road, although most of the trails were more suited to mountain bikes so I couldn’t go on many of them.

The part of today’s stage we’re heading to first is the ‘feeding station’ just outside the town of Sotopalacios, which is only about a 14 km drive from the campground.  We got a really good place to park and set up the table and chairs, as well as my umbrella sunshade. Even though once again it’s not so blistering hot out the sun isn’t good for my skin – I’m still putting the cortizone cream on the back of my neck and my arms – especially the two mosquito bites I got a couple of weeks ago that got infected, or maybe they were just extra irritated by the sun.  While waiting we ate a nice lunch of more of the leftover paella – still tasty.  

Even though we were in a good spot we didn’t score any bidons or musettes (water/juice bottles and food bags), but that was ok.  As soon as the last rider and all of the support vehicles had passed we sped away to get to the finish at Castrojeriz.

We found a good parking space outside the local swimming pool and walked a short way to the finish area.   We picked a spot about 100 metres before the finish.  

The small breakaway group had been caught and the peloton blew by in a sprint finish.

We waited and watched part of the podium presentations before heading to a cafe/bar in the village to have a beverage before hitting the road back to the campground.  It had a lovely backyard area and we sat under the trees surrounded by bushes, flowers, fellow cycling fans, and locals.

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