Month: August 2022

Walked Today: 9.6mi/Camino 2022: 110mi

Our walk began in the dark. We didn’t unpack our headlamps, because even in the dark the first few miles are straight-forward and we know our way. Jim calls the initial half-mile “Proud Mary hill” because the first time we climbed Alto Najera, Linda turned up the volume on her phone and played the Tina Turner classic to help us get to the top.

Some 3.5 miles into the walk we stopped at the only village with services, Asofra, and had breakfast.

The walk from Asofra to Cirueña has little shade and winds among endless grain fields and vineyards. The following photos show the similarity of the view and terrain for most of the walk.

The last mile into Cirueña was a very steep grade and slowed all pilgrims down… the young, the not so young and those in the middle. It was particularly difficult, because it came at the end of a nine mile walk.

The entrance into Cirueña is shared with a very nice golf course. The pro shop snackbar has become a favorite stopping point for us before completing the last half mile to Casa Victoria, our traditional stop for the night.

Our Casa Victoria hostess offered to wash and dry our clothing for 6€, which we accepted without hesitation. She also reserved a place for us at their nearby Casa Victoria Albergue pilgrim’s dinner… 12€ each. So, with much of our afternoon tasks taken care of, we headed out for lunch at the only bar in Cirueña and relaxed with our remaining tasks while awaiting dinner at 7:00.

We had a nice dinner with 14 other pilgrims. Our table included a couple from Ireland and three ladies from France. We chatted about a variety of experiences on the Camino and elsewhere. It was fun and stimulating and a nice way to end the day.

Walked Today: 6.7mi/Camino 2022: 100mi.

When we got up this morning, Linda looked out our room window and was surprised how beautiful the view was with street lights still on at first light….

A prearranged taxi met us at our hotel door at 7:00 to take us to Ventosa. Najera is 10 miles away and we decided last night that we’re building our distance stamina at a good rate but not at the 10 mile level yet. The taxi ride chopped off just under 4 miles leaving us a more reasonable walk into Najera… continuing our paced Camino 2022.

The area surrounding the Poyo de Roldan is always a beautiful sight. The Poyo was the watchtower from which Charlemagne’s knights, led by Roldan, sighted the castile of Ferragut, the Syrian lord of Najera. Ferragut was over 9 feet tall and weighed over 500 lbs, and challenged the knights to a duel… and if any knight were to succeed, the Moors would give of their holdings in Northern Spain. None of Charlemagne’s knights had succeeded in defeating Ferragut, however, when Roldan had his turn, the duel went on for two days, with Ferragut falling onto Roldan, attempting to squish him. Roldan, according to one of the legends, pulled his dagger free and stabbed Ferragut in his achilles belly button, killing him instantantly. The Moors, as a result, abandoned Najera and headed south, leaving northern Spain to the victorious Christains.

We arrived around 10:00 at Pension San Lorenzo, but were informed (emphatically) that they would not deviate from their standard 1:00 check-in time. Bummer!

So we passed the next three hours….

Finally, at 1:30, we checked into our room with a light meal of sandwiches in hand. With “the evening meal” taken care of, we spent the afternoon and evening in our room doing chores, reading, blogging and preparing for tomorrow’s walk and having our evening meal ensuite.

Walked Today: 7.7mi/Camino 2022: 93mi

Today was literally a walk in the park. We initially walked through Logroño on well marked sidewalks for about 1.5 miles.

We then entered a park/green area between several apartment complexes for another mile.

As we left the residential park, we entered a park consisting of benches along a tree-lined concrete path for walkers& runners and a parallel bike path that extended another couple of miles,

…..then entered a camping ground/park that meandered for another mile or so.

We finally exited the parks for a narrow paved road that worked its way through an experimental vineyard focused on white tempanillo grapes, adjacent to a winery.

After climbing up and out of the vineyard, , we began walking on a paved path that was parallel to an expressway for another 2 plus miles until reaching the outskirts of the village of Navarrete, pop. 2952.

Our normal breakfast bar where we stopped the previous three Caminos, is no more… a probable casualty of the pandemic. Sadly we continued walking to the town center plaza to have a our standard breakfast. It was early, so we took our time eating and Jim scouted out potential lunch, dinner and snack spots and verified opening/closing times.

The Hostal Villa de Navarrete was only a few steps from the plaza and we were able to check-in at 11:00 and began our daily chores.

About 5 pm we walked a few steps from our hotel to a nice little bar with a patio covered with shady trees. The bar’s specialty is tapas, in particular, marinated mushrooms. Linda sampled these tasty morsels in 2019, which made such a favorable impression, it’s a primary reason we chose to stay in Navarrete.

Linda ordered the mushrooms again and was not disappointed!

Walked Today: 6.3mi/Camino2022: 86 mi

There’s not a whole lot to say about today.

The walk to Logroño was not easy or difficult, the views were nothing new and even the sunrise was nice, but not spectacular.

We arrived at our hotel at 9:45. Our room was ready and for the first time, we got to our destination about 30 minutes before our transported backpacks.

Like most days, finding a place to get a full meal at a time we would prefer, can be difficult… especially if its not nearby… since we don’t normally need to add extra walking in search of one. Today, however, the lady at reception spoke good English and was able to direct us to the one restaurant in this city of 150,000 residents, that offered a dinner before 8:00p.m. She also guided us to nearby pintcho/tapas bars, a Logroño drawing card. This allowed us to have a tapas lunch and a “normal” 6:00 dinner.

After 14 days of walking, we’ve established a rhythm that works for us…. allowing us to walk a little further, deal with the physical challenges we encounter and absorb more of what the Camino has to offer.

Walked- Today: 5.4mi/Camino 2022: 79 mi

We began again at daybreak, and walked in a straight line with only slight variations in elevation. The scenery also did not vary. The dirt path finally made a few curves before merging with the pavement as we walked into Sansol, pop. 100.

On the outskirts of Sansol, we were saddened to see a favorite stopping place had become one of the many casualties of the pandemic too frequently observed thus far for Camino 2022.

We continued on to the next small village of Torres del Rio, pop. 122, where we got breakfast and concluded our walk for the day.

The 6 mile stretch from Torres del Rio is know as the “ knee wrecker”. It is aptly named, based on our personal experience walking it in 2014 and 2017. We used a taxi to bypass it in 2019 and we plan to use a bus to skip it today. We used La Pata de Oca albergue as our base, while waiting for the 11:35 bus to transport us into Viana, where we will spend the night.

At the bus stop, we met two other pilgrims (Phillip, from Texas and Lora, from Germany) who had similar ideas about the “knee wrecker”. They both had previous experiences walking the Camino. Phillip was nursing some blisters and Lora was recovering from heat stroke, suffered a few days earlier. We rode the bus to Viana together, then parted with Phillip going on to Logroño and Lora meeting some other German friends in Viana or Logtoño.

We walked a short distance from the Viana bus stop to our guesthouse, San Pedro, checked in and return to the Viana Calle Mayor (main street) to have a pilgrim menu for lunch before beginning our routine afternoon chores. We were entertained by hundreds of Viana locals enjoying Sunday afternoon socializing, spontaneous outbursts of music and song, plus the constant flow of pilgrims either joining in or moving on to Logroño

We returned to our room, doing our usual, then returned at 6:00 to the now, abandoned streets to grab a couple of pintxos and wine for a snack meal, then calling it another day on the Camino 2022.

Walked- Today: 7.8mi/Camino 2022: 74mi

We left Villamayor de Monjardin at 6:45 with the stars still out and the temperature, a delightfully refreshing 52F. The nearly 8 miles walk to Los Arcos is without any services, ie., no water, no food and no rest areas.

There were a few hills that broke the monotony of the mostly flat, dirt road that carved its way among an occasional green patch of grapevines, olive trees or asparagus plants.

At one point, about 5 miles into the walk, as we were dragging up one of the steeper hills we observed a small rock in the middle of the path … which urged us onward.

We walked past a “hay stack“, which is typical of the area, but still awesome, every time we see one.

The challenge of today’s walk was to not get discouraged by the seemingly endless distances ahead of us most of the way.

We got to Los Arcos about 10:30 and found an empty table in the village square and rested our bodies a few minutes, before having some breakfast. Check-in time for our room was noon, so we hung out in the square until then,

To occupy some of the “ wait” time, we visited the church on the square, the Iglesia de Santa Maria de la Asunción. It’s one of our favorite churches on the Camino.

We checked-in to our room at 12:30 , then shortly after returned to the plaza for lunch… since all other restaurants won’t be serving meals until 7:30. We returned to our room, did our chores, blogged, read and had our “ backup” sandwiches ( prepared last night in our kitchen) for a light supper before retiring for the evening.

Walked Today: 6.2mi/Camino 2022: 66.2mi

Shortly after the Wine Fountain we began walking with Tim from Washington, DC. We walked together until we reached Villamayor de Monjardin, and he continued on toward Los Arcos.

Tim recently retired from diplomatic service and shared some extraordinary experiences he had during his career. He recently attended his daughter’s graduation from college in Barcelona then traveled to several European locations, before deciding to walk the Camino on rather short notice. We shared some of our Camino experiences and answered questions he had about the days ahead. We really enjoyed chatting with him, so much so, that the today’s walk, which has a lot of uphill sections, seem to be much easier and we were surprised how soon we reached our destination.

We arrived at our destination at 11:00 and were given immediate access to Markiola by the owner, who also operates the small market next door. We were the only occupants for the day, giving us sole access to all the facilities.

We had lunch (turkey sandwiches, wine), dinner ( spaghetti with tomato sauce, wine and bread) and prepared a “backup” lunch (ham, egg and cheese baguette) for tomorrow all from the Markiola “ kitchen”!

Today was full of nice surprises, our stamina is building and it’s great to be back on the Camino Frances.

Walked Today: 6.0mi/Camino 2022: 60mi

Today was fairly easy and uneventful. We had walked about 2.5 miles when we stopped for breakfast at Villatuerte at 8:00.

We arrived at Estella around 9:30 and found the Plaza de Iglesia del San Juan Bautista completely occupied with a market. We walked among the shoppers and were awed by the variety and colors of goods offered.

Jim took a chance and knocked on the door of Hotel Cristina at 10:00 and was not only admitted but presented with the keys to our room!

After attending to our chores, we found a small American style diner, which at 12:30 was the only eatery offering food, other than pintxos, until after 7 p.m. tonight.

While we ate we observed the plaza as the market vendors began disassembling there displays and packing up their products. Our tummies filled with fried eggs, fries and chicken, we retired to our room and napped, read and blogged until about 5:30, when we ventured out again hoping to find some pintxos to serve as dinner. The plaza was completely cleared, with no evidence of the morning market. “Church of Saint John the Baptist” in the background.

We again had no luck finding a restaurant or bar offering any kind of food, so we had to settle for some prepared sandwiches offered by a small grocery store. We retired to our room, ate and called it a day.

Walked Today: 5.5mi/Camino 2022: 54mi

We arrived very early (9:45) at Bodega del Camino and ordered a late breakfast. After we finished, Jim asked if we could check-in early and we were pleasantly surprised to hear “Si”. Michael, the albergue manager, is from southern Germany. His boss recently acquired the albergue, which had been closed for 2 years during the pandemic. Michael’s staff is a family (father, mother & daughter) who escaped from Mariupol, Ukraine soon after the Russian invasion. They made their way to Georgia, then Austria and ultimately to Spain and Lorca.

We have stayed at the Bodega del Camino previously in 2014, 2017, 2019 and now 2022. We are glad it has reopened. It among our top favorite albergues on the Camino Frances.

We took advantage of the common areas including a wash basin and clothes drying lines… with clothes pins!!! We got showers, examined our feet for any issues needing treatment and chilled in our comfortable room with twin beds and ensuite bathroom (59€). Shortly after noon we had a tasty lunch in the bar.

We also placed our orders to have the pilgrim dinner tonight at 7 in the albergue bar.

Our pilgrim dinner was with a gentleman from Germany who enjoys walking long distances. He walked here from SJPDP in three days… 64 miles. Two french ladies were walking together. A young man also from France was walking for a week, taking some time off from his job.

We were served a ensalada mixta, baked chicken in a brown sauce, rice and roasted vegetables and chocolate cake and ice cream with a cherry sauce.

A delicious meal, interesting, multilingual conversation and gracious hosts provided a nice conclusion to another day on the Camino Frances.

Walked- Today:3.00 mi Camino 2022: 48.5 mi

We walked through Puente la Reina this morning on our way to Mańeru.

We’ve never stayed in Mańeru before but have passed by the El Cantero albergue three times. Staying here tonight cuts what would be a long 8 miles into two easy days… consistent with our Camino 2022 plan.

Most albergues will not open to guests before 1:00. Today, El Cantero was no exception. We arrived at 11:16 a.m. and had to wait until 1:00 p.m. to check-in and have access to our reserved room.

Jim approached the “time keeper” and pointed to his watch that it was 1 o’clock. The guy looked around, frantically and said 10 more minutes. Jim came back at 1:10 and with the apparent owner and the lady who confirmed our reservation via telephone yesterday, present, the check-in process began. Our double room with private bath is 45€.

Tonight we skipped a pilgrim dinner offered by El Cantero, opting instead for our late-lunch bogadilla leftovers and assorted fruit drinks and cookies purchased at a local market.