Walked Today: 8.1 mi Camino2023: 86.5 mi
We began walking at 6:10. It was still dark but the city lights made it easy to see our way. The temperature was a comfortable 61F, with a slight breeze.
For the first 45 minutes, we walked along city street streets for .75 miles, then another 1.5 miles through a nice park with high rise apartments on both sides.
As we reached the outskirts of the city the Camino entered a stretch of tree lined, paved walk/ bicycle/running paths with frequent benches along the way for nearly another 1.5 miles
Linda began chatting with Elena, from Southhampton, England. She had lived for two years in Logroño during the pandemic. She walked the Camino from Logroño to Santiago last year. She said the Camino had “called her back” to finish by walking from SJPDP to Logroño this year. Her dad is a college professor ( Chemistry) and had coincidentally, spent a year in Claremont-Ferrand, France on a sabbatical. Elena is planning to return to England to begin job hunting.
As Elena moved on ahead of us, the paved path then changed to dirt as it passed through a campground that included a lake, recreation area and, off in the distance, a golf course.
Some 2.5 miles later, after winding through an experimental agricultural project for tempranilla blanco grapes, we joined a paved frontage road that paralleled the expressway below us for another 2 miles into Navarrete.
On the edge of the town of Navarrete, (pop. 2952) we walked past a major bodega (winery) that convert the grapes growing on all the surrounding vines into delicious Rioja wines.
We relaxed in the town square while having a leisurely breakfast. Next we had a nice lady in the bar call a taxi to take us the remaining 4 miles to Ventosa, our destination for the day.
Señora Bonet, the owner was our host and also prepared and served a delicious dinner in her dining room.
Ventosa is a small village of 166 inhabitants. We’ve stayed at Las Aguedas three times before after discovering it by accident in 2014. It would rank among the finest B&B’s in the U.S. but cost 68€ for the two of us and dinner for two was 58€.
During and after dinner we chatted with Señora Benot about the possibility of returning to Ventosa via auto in the future and using Las Aguedas as a base for touring Rioja wineries. It would be an interesting way to return to the Camino again, but with a different format. Hmmm.
We’re apparently getting stronger because we were not as tired from today’s walk, even though it was one of our longer ones thus far. Our itching mosquito bites are still a nuisance, but nor a hindrance to Camino2023.
Jimandi 