It was a long day and not a very interesting one. We are exhausted so I’m just going to post a few photos. It was the second longest distance for a stage today at almost 29km. We walked from 6:30am until 3.
Another early start…and music
Today is day 7 out of 33+. We were on the road by 6:45 to get a head start on our first long day. We’ll have another long one tomorrow.
The countryside is changing. The hills are lower and browner, but still tons of grapes and olives. We passed some men harvesting green grapes this morning. Rich may or may not have picked some grapes along the way 😉
We ate breakfast 2 towns in. Super-yokey fried eggs sopped up with baguette, a chocolate pastry, fresh orange juice and cafe con leche. It was delicious and I was starving.
We took a break in Viana and ended up in the middle of a parade. Apparently there was a corrida de toros (bull running) today at 1 pm. We decided not to stay for the running of the bulls and bought some bocadillos (baguette sandwiches) of dried ham, cheese, and roasted green pepper for a picnic lunch (yum. I like the roasted pepper.)
It was a hot afternoon, and so a tough finish to today’s stage. Tonight there’s some fellowship and music in the courtyard, along with soaking of feet. So wonderful! A couple from Denmark is leading singing along with guitar. …John Denver Take Me Home, now Simon and Garfunkel. Everyone is singing along. Rich knows all these songs and is lending his voice. Here come the Beatles!
A Very Pleasant Day
We made it to today’s destination very early today, by 1:30, so we have been enjoying the sun and a beer on the patio of the alburgue and waiting for our turn with the washing machine.
Last night in Estella we visited a church/fortress for some spiritual time. Then we browsed through some grocers and bought a few snacks for today’s picnic lunch (olives, chocolate cookies and fruit).
Estella reminded me of some of the Italian cities we’ve visited. We crossed over the river into narrow streets filled with all sorts of fascination shops until we got to a public square lined with restaurants with cafe tables. There we enjoyed a “pilgrim meal” for dinner.
The pilgrim meal is akin to the tourist menu that you find in Europe. It usually includes a main dish, bread, water, wine, and often dessert too. Last night was scrumptious veal steak, French fries, small salty roasted green peppers, a fried egg and spaghetti with tomato sauce. The wine was extra but is so good and so cheap. 3 euros for a bottle of delicious vino tinto.
We hadn’t lunched prior to arriving in Estella yesterday so after registering at the albergue we went to the bar across the street and had 2 glasses each of beer with lemonade, a huge salada mixta and “nuggets de pollo”. The beer/lemonade combo is very refreshing.
Today’s walk began with breakfast at a cafe in a gas station where we also purchased a baguette, Spanish chorizo and some sliced cheese for a picnic lunch. The first attraction on the way was a stop at a monastery where there is a wine fountain that literally dispensed wine from a spigot.
After the wine fount the trail split and we took the more elevated trail that wound through woodlands and provided beautiful vistas. It was nice to get a bit more solitude in this stretch.
We picnicked at the ruins of a pilgrim hostel built in 950. We could also see edifices perched on top of distant peaks. I don’t know if they were castles or monasteries but looked to be something of that sort.
The countryside continues to be fallow grain fields, vineyards and olive groves. I am extremely envious of some of the vegetable gardens we pass.
BTW, my hip behaved itself, but this albergue offers massages so I signed up for one. Our walk to Longrono tomorrow is very long, over 29 km.
We are encountering new pilgrims everyday. Today at breakfast (awesome espresso coffee and chocolate pastry in the gas station) we met a young lady from Cardiff, Wales. We are also meeting up with some of the same pilgrims again and again, getting to know them better. The Brazilians seem to be multiplying. 😉
I have some video of a violin and accordion duo that were performing along the trail junction today. So much fun. A couple of pilgrims started dancing. Unfortunately I can’t get it to upload yet.
So Much Harder Than I Thought It’d Be
Today was not such a Buen Camino. My head was down most of the day and I really struggled to make it.
The morning started out innocuously. We were in the trail at 7 and watched the dawn as we walked along some red cliffs. It was only as we hit the first rise that I realized that I hadn’t seen some of my clothes as I packed up this morning. We soon figured out that Rich hadn’t recognized some of my things when he was bringing in the laundry last night and some of my wash has been left behind on the drying line at the albergue.
I left my pack and trekking poles with Rich and ran a number of miles back to town, retrieved my belongings and ran back to Rich. This put us at the back of the pack and I was concerned about trying to catch back up. I soon found out that I had injured my right leg in the run. I could barely move my leg due to pain in my hip area. It was very painful and I wondered if this was the end of my Camino. I kept staggering along and we made the first town and stopped in a bar for breakfast and a couple of Advil.
Today was supposed to be an easier stage of the Camino but we pilgrims are beginning to realize that we didn’t really understand how hard this trek is. Nothing is “easy”.
Today’s route took us past more vineyards and olive orchards and through some really nice towns. Rich gathered some figs and apples from trees along the way. Part of the trail was an old Roman road which is interesting from a historical perspective but pretty hard on the knees. As Rich put it “the Romans need to send out the maintenance crew”.
Tonight’s albergue is riverside and we’re about to go out and explore this extremely picturesque town.
Last night Pamplona had a festival. The streets were crowded with vendors, musicians and families. Rich and I walked around the old city and caught part of a symphony and choir concert in the large square. Everyone was dressed in jackets and scarves as the temperature was 14 c.
This morning’s walk was another damp one with a steady drizzle and muddy trails. It was a long uphill followed by a long down hill. The rain cleared out and we got some sun this afternoon. The countryside transitioned from plowed under fields or drying fields of sunflowers to vinyards and olive groves. Met 2 pilgrims from Florida who are very concerned about the hurricane and their families.
I have blisters on top of blisters on my pinkie toe. Really gross and I hope I can get it healed.
It’s really kind of neat on the open stretches of trail to look ahead and see the parade of pilgrims ahead and behind. There are 300! on the same stage as us. It makes a very colorful parade when all the differently hued rain ponchos are out.
We took a detour with an extra 3 km to visit an ancient church used by the Templars.
No Sign of the Bulls
We left Zubiri this morning at 7 am in a light rain, headed to Pamplona. It was an “easy day” as far as the Camino goes, not too many ascents or descents and only 20.9 km.
We intended to walk 5 km and then get breakfast at a cafe in the next village, but it turns out the shop was closed because everyone was sleeping off a town festival that happened the night before. So, we walked on another 5 km to a really nice riverside pilgrim cafe where quite a number of fellow pilgrims were having coffee too.
Today’s walk followed the river Arga for the most part. It wasn’t as scenic, but Pamplona sure seems to be. We are staying inside the walled city in another albergue. By chance today we ended up walking with Annli from Denmark who we met in the final (awful) descent to Roncesvalles the first day. We ended up in the same dormitory this afternoon and shared a meal with her.
We finally have some halfway decent wi-if so I’ve been catching up electronically. Rich is napping. Our evening plans are exploring Pamplona, maybe a little pizza, and laundry.
To the Pain
Yesterday was about conquering the mountain… today about enduring the pain.
We almost didn’t get a bed last night because there are a lot of pilgrims walking with us and the hostels fill up. Consequently we left Roncesvalles this morning at 7 am., before the sun came up, walking by the lights of our headlamps to make sure we would get to Zubiri early. It was very cold at the start and we were all bundled up in jackets. We walked 24 km today, up and down, alternating between woodlands, pastures, and small towns.
The towns were cute, with white-washed buildings with red tile roofs, dark wooden shutters and window boxes of cascading red begonias. The trail has lots of delicious wild blackberries growing along side it, which a lot of the pilgrims seem to be enjoying.
The pain of walking kept increasing as the day wore on. The down hills are the worst because of knee pain. Thank goodness we packed the trekking poles at the last minute because I’m not sure I could do this camino without them. This afternoon after beer/wine at a bar we’ve been cleaning up and hopefully now we can just chill out until dinner. We are all so sore that one of the other pilgrims described the way we walk as the “camino shuffle”.
We learned a fun fact last night from a Spanish pilgrim who dined at our table. He says the country that has the most pilgrims on the camino these days is South Korea!
Note: The wifi at the albergues has been really slow so I haven’t been able to upload photos 🙁
I tried to imagine the worst
…
and today’s walk was far more difficult than I ever thought it could be! 58,910 steps, 23.7 miles (horizontal), 4,933 calories burned, 525 staircases climbed.
When locals said the trail was steep I thought the trail would be steep, not slide-down-on-your-butt STEEP. But the views as we crossed the Pyrenees were gorgeous and we met many pilgrims, a number from California, Canada, Brazil (on bikes), Australia, Germany and Denmark.
The albergue hostel is “interesting”. Mixed sex ( around 36) sharing bunk beds in a building with 2 toilets and 2 showers. Getting laundry dry has been a problem and we’ll see about the snoring tonight.
We’ve arrived in St. Jean Pied de Port
Rich and I spent the afternoon registering as pilgrims and exploring this picturesque Basque town in Southern France. Tonight we’re splurging on an Air BnB and one of our few chances for a comfy, private bed.
We have a tough day tomorrow, as we go over the Pyrenees and ascend 1,389m on the Route de Napoleon to Roncesvalles, Spain…and jet lag has hit… so to bed we go.
