Day 3 – Cirauqui to Lorca

Walked today: 4.1mi. Camino’26: 24mi.

We left our backpacks in the Maralotx lobby, retrieved our trekking poles and put on our shoes, then began our walk.

Putting on shoes after retrieving them from the “footwear rack” …a procedure employed by most albergues for better hygiene in sleeping areas.
Putting on boots is easier sitting on steps.
Linda exiting front door of Maralotx this morning at 7:30

Finding our way from Maralotx through the maze leading back onto the Camino would have been a challenge had this been our first camino.

From Albergue Maralotx at top left to bottom right, we made 6 turns to rejoin the Camino, which fed right onto the ruins of a 2000 year old Roman road.

For Jim, no matter how many times we walk from Cirauqui directly onto an actual Roman road which then crosses an actual Roman bridge is always a surreal experience. It epitomizes the extraordinary history of the Camino Frances.

walking on the edge of Roman road
Approaching the Roman bridge
Scaling the steps leaving the Roman bridge

Leaving the 1st century BC Roman road we crossed over a 21st century expressway and began walking among wheat fields, olive orchards and vineyards and occasional remnants of Roman road on our way to Lorca.

A typical view during most of today’s walk.
Another Roman bridge we encountered during today’s walk.
A near miss with agressive cycling pilgrim on today’s walk.
On our first camino after the Pandemic and still recovering from covid, we sought ways to reduce Camino challenges. The “official” camino goes left… which goes down 100 ft them ultimately climbs back up 100 ft into Lorca. We took the right fork and saved ourselves some effort.

Today we continued our modified way to enter Lorca, a tradition we implemented in 2022.

The high road vs the low road.., we took the high road.
Jim arriving at Lorca with the valley where we came from in the background.
Linda merging our modified Lorca entry with the normal entry.
Linda’s bench. Traditional resting place after tackling the steep hill into Lorca. Today, Linda said she wasn’t nearly as tired compared to her first climb into Lorca (and she’s 12 years older!!!)
No tostadas, so we opted for baguette and tortilla to go with cafe con-lèche

Jim walked to Casa Nahia and was able to successfully negotiate an earlier checkin time than the normal 3:00. We relaxed in the village square in the shade near the fountain chatting with mostly, just-passing-through pilgrims, then checked in at noon!

We stayed here in 2024 and decided to give it another visit. The proprietor family of parents and daughter named, did you guess?, Nahia, built property in 2020-21. They live on the first floor and the second floor is dedicated to spaces for guests.

Our room at Casa Nahia

We spent the afternoon resting, washing clothes with a washer/dryer (12€), reading, blogging and a enjoying a session of Hand&Foot,

For dinner we had some local red wine, and sandwiches that we bought while waiting for our room this morning, allowing us to skip the typical evening meal for a change.

Today was another enjoyable one for Camino2026.

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