Day 56 - Home

Today was the day I headed home.

Russ and I had agreed to have breakfast in the 5-star Parador on the cathedral square. I’m not sure what the hotel reception thought when two bearded and scruffy men turned up at their upmarket establishment (and they made a point of telling us that breakfast would cost twenty-three euros) but they gave us a good table in the first floor breakfast room overlooking the cathedral square and the price was worth it with as much cooked breakfast and coffee delivered to the table as you wanted and a buffet for everything else. Afterwards we bade each other farewell and I made my way to the bus stop and the beginnings of a day of travel and my journey home. 

It was to be a long day: an hour's bus ride to the airport, an extended wait before flying to Gatwick, a train to London and coach to Corsham occupied the rest of that day and the early hours of the next morning. When I arrived home tired and weary it was two months to the day since I had left my house and I had walked some 780 miles from the south coast to the north coast of Spain. It's an experience that might take a while to sink in as I come back to reality; after two months of walking and being somewhat detached from the world my head will probably stay in that space for a few days more yet. In the meantime I intend to enjoy the comfort of my own bed, the luxury of being in the same place for more than two nights and with no need to submit to the constraints of living out of a rucksack.