Author: 2cdssrs

• Distance today:                      9.6 mi
• Distance Camino 2017:    135.4 mi

We encountered a steep climb up the mountain behind Nájera at the beginning of our walk and a gradual, steep incline carrying us from the valley up into Cirueña, but otherwise the terrain was not an issue for our longest walk since we began nearly 3 weeks ago.

Shortly after our breakfast stop in Asofra,

Jim chatted for a few minutes with Gary from England who was walking 25-30 km per day for only a week, as he has done the last few years. With him were his daughter, a college student, and his two cousins.

We stopped for a second cafe con leche and zuma  naranja at a golf course for an unusual 19th hole Camino experience to conclude our walk.

Today was much of what we enjoy about the Camino. The rolling farmland of Rioja, extending out in all directions from a winding seemingly endless Camino soothed the senses. The dark green rows of fruit filled grape vines randomly patched among already harvested fields of grain and occasional, occurring lighter green olive orchards formed a comforting quilt. The sounds of rustling water in the open irrigation trenches, the gentle rhythm of crunching footsteps and an occasional dog bark punctuated the soundless void that was relaxing and meditative and sustaining.

The cloudy sky with showers off in the distance and a gusty wind threatened rain most of the morning, but provided only a minor threat and instead made us thankful and satisfied as we completed today’s not hard, not easy but satisfying daily journey.

We arrived in Cirueña (pop. 127) at 11:45 and we able to check-in to Casa Victoria (42€), a home that rents out 3-4 nice rooms for guests. After completing our chores we had a sandwich for lunch at the “only bar in town”, literally, then had a nice relaxing afternoon.

For dinner we joined a group at the Albergue Victoria which is owned by the same family that owns ours. Our fellow pilgrims all spoke a little English.

One lady, originally from Peru was with her American husband and they live in Connecticut. The others were from Brazil, Italy and Ireland.

• Distance today:                      6.6 mi
• Distance Camino 2017:    125.8 mi

Between Ventosa and Nájera is the village of Alesón where the legendary knight, Roland had camped in July 778 with his knights on his way to Santiago with Charlemagne and the French army. Early the next morning they marched to the Poyo Roldan (Roland’s Hill),

which was a large mound serving as a watchtower over the castle of Nájera. The Moors occupied Nájera and had sent the giant, Ferragut, of Syrian origin and 20,000 soldiers from Turkey to fight Charlemagne’s army, who was marching to Santiago and driving the Moors from northern Spain. Ferragut was reportedly a descendent of Goliath (of David and Goliath fame), was 9 feet tall and weighed over 400 pounds. (He was ugly, too!)

Ferragut came out from Nájera into the open field between Poyo Roldan and Nájera, challenging any of the opposition to fight him one-on-one. Many tried and failed. Finally, Roland insisted on having his turn and fought with the giant for three days. In between spurts of fighting the two conversed about their respective faiths, and Ferragut revealed that his one weak place (his Achille’s heel if you will) was his belly button. A final duel ensued, having both agreed that the winner would be the one espousing the true faith. Ferragut tried to fall on Roland to crush him to death, but Roland stabbed him in the belly and won.

The duel lost, the Moors vacated Nájera and moved south, clearing the way for Charlemagne’s army to continue on their way toward Santiago. And Roland became the greatest knight in Christianity.

We must be getting stronger. Maybe not strong enough to take on Ferragut, but today’s walk seemed actually easy. We were pleasantly surprised when we stopped just outside of Nájera (pop. 8144) for our standard breakfast and weren’t really tired from our nearly 7 mile trek.

 

Pencion Calle Mayor (30€) didn’t open until noon so we explored Nájera a little and hung around a bar with wifi (most every place has wifi, especially bars) and made like efficient pilgrims waiting for their room.

Our twin bed room is small and shares 2 bathrooms with 5 other private rooms and a communal bedroom with 6 twin beds (not bunks).

There is a communal kitchen which is large enough to include a washing machine and racks to dry clothes near several windows. Being the first pilgrims to arrive, we had the bathrooms to ourselves for showers and washing socks and underwear, so we didn’t actually share.

Late afternoon (4:30-5:30) we walked around Nájera and discovered as we often do in Spain, that a meal like dinner, is not offered by restaurants before 8:00 p.m. We finally found a bar and ordered pasta.

Before calling it a day we walked to the Monasterio de Santa María la Real.

According to legend, in 1044 Navarran King Don Garcia III was hunting partridge with a falcon. The two birds entered a cave and the king followed them in and deep inside he found a statue of the Virgin Mary, with a vase of fresh lilies and a burning oil lamp.

He saw this as a blessing on the Reconquista and used some of the money he had plundered from the Moors to build a church around the cave leaving the statue in place. At one point the statue wore a crown of jewels, which were later stolen and divided. The Black Prince Ruby made its way to England’s coronation crown.

The church is also a burial place for Navarran royalty and also contains the remains of monarchs going back to 918 AD.

• Distance today:                     5.5 mi
• Distance Camino 2017:   119.2 mi

Today’s walk was relatively short and mostly unremarkable, by design, as our main objective was to stay in Ventosa at the Hotel Rural Las Aquedas, a significant highlight of our previous Camino.

Furthermore, the normal stopping points available for the 45 miles after Logroño would require 4 or 5 days in a row of walking 10 miles. By staying last night in Navarrete and tonight in Ventosa, our mileage from Logroño for the next several days will be: 8, 5, 6, 9, 7, 10… resulting in an extra overnight but hopefully much easier on our feet and bodies.

Las Aquedas (63€) would be considered a very nice B&B in the U.S., so for us it seems like a bargain.  It is owned and run by Rocio Juesas Bonet, a gracious Spanish Señora. She welcomes you like an old friend into her beautifully decorated home, a converted 18th century bakery.

Our room (the same room we occupied in 2014) is spacious with a modern bathroom and separate vanity area, solid hardwood doors and trim, classic furniture, comfortable seating, a crystal chandelier over a king size bed, marble tiled floors and well placed windows that create natural cross ventilation eliminating the need for air conditioning even in the middle of August.

There is a common, functional living area for guests, suitable for reading, a game of cards or just enjoying the view of the surrounding mountains, valleys, vineyards and farmland.

Dinner guests are received in her green garden before being seated at her dining room table and served traditional and deliciously prepared Northern Spain foods, family style.

Because Las Aquedas is located on the Camino, the blend of Camino and non-Camino guests, potentially from anywhere in the world, makes for a unique, enriching dinner conversation and experience.

Tonight we were the only guests in the inn for dinner, but our culinary experience was still outstanding as well as our interaction with our hostess.

There is still a very special feeling about this place. Today was the most comfortable, restful day and evening so far on Camino 2017.  An unforgettable experience and memory.

 

1. Distance today:                     8.1 mi
2. Distance Camino 2017:   113.7mi

Today was a walk-in-the-park, at least for the first 4 miles. Shortly after walking through and leaving Logroño center city, we were directed to a wide, brick paver walkway surrounded by green grass and children’s play areas, which divided what appeared to be large apartment buildings, which extended for at least a half-mile.

The walkway then began winding through more green areas and a small pond and eventually narrowed as we left the city, but continued as a paved walk/bike trail with concrete benches every few hundred feet for at least another 1.5 miles. The concrete path became a dirt path through a camping park with playgrounds, a lake and a nearby golf course (according to signage). We stopped at a bar in the park that was just opening and had a cafe and shared a tortilla.

During our combination breakfast stop/feet rest, we chatted with a young couple in their late 60’s from Holland, Pete & Katia. They were walking their 5th Camino, but started from Pamplona each time to avoid the difficult first stage over the Pyrenees. We asked them to take a photo of us before they departed. They were walking a bit faster than we, so we wished them “buen Camino” as we left the rest stop together.

Rain has been threatening all morning and we can see showers in the distance. When a few drops hit us, we stopped, put on our pack rain covers and put our ponchos in an easy to reach place, then continued on.  Like carrying an umbrella, activating our rain gear can prevent rain as it did today!

The rest of the walk was also on pavement, a road winding through and up the side of a hill through vineyards and an asphalt path parallel to the highway until we got on dirt again just outside Navarrete, where we got back on asphalt and climbed a very steep hill into this small town (pop. 2865).

As soon as we entered Navarrete at the top of the hill, we stopped at the first bar for orange juice/cafe con leche and another feet rest.

We continued on into and almost to the opposite side of town before reaching albergue El Cántaro.

The owner, whose wife completed the Camino in 2015, said they didn’t open until 12:00 but he allowed us to check in anyway and guided us to our room.

There is a festival going on in town, so immediately after we completed our chores, we walked back to town center for a pintxos lunch

plus a visit to the Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, which has one of the most impressive baroque retablos in all of Spain.

Linda acquired two small blisters with today’s longer walk, but applied her standard treatment and as with previous ones, should not be a problem.

We walked back into the main town square at 6:00 p.m. to get something to eat. But every restaurant or pintxos bar we went to, the food was either gone or picked over due to the apparent large festival turnout. We finally found a couple of sandwiches and were about to return to the room when a band marched by and we followed it to an arena next to the square. We couldn’t believe our eyes, so we bought two tickets and attended a bullfight!

It was really neat. Great fun to watch 5 young toreros (a torero is a bullfighter, whereas, a matador is a torero who actually kills the bull in the bullfight) ranging from low teens to maybe 20 perform in the ring and neither toreros nor bulls were hurt.

So ended another gem of a day on the Camino Frances.

• Distance today:                      6.7 mi
• Distance Camino 2017:     105.6mi

When we left our penćion at 7:15 a.m., Linda smelled baking bread. We followed our noses in the opposite direction of the Camino until we came upon a bakery that was just opening for business, made an appropriate purchase, reversed direction and ate a light breakfast as we walked out of Viana.

After our rollercoaster walk yesterday, the rather flat, unremarkable section of Camino between Viana and Logroño was a welcome change. Most of the morning we walked on pavement or dirt paths with fist size embedded stones creating a nuisance rather than a major hazard.

We walked through a number of underpasses while weaving through the roads accessing Logroño, the capital of the wine making region of Rioja.

Graffiti is common on all underpasses on the Camino. They contain the usual religious, political, humor and maybe even gang territorial markings. But today, because we walked through so many, the artwork and writings made more of an impression.

After a moderately steep, paved descent, we continued through a nice park along the Rio Ebro before crossing the 19th century Puente de Piedra into Logroño (pop. 150,000).

The original bridge was built by Santo Domingo de la Calzada in the 11th century and rebuilt by his disciple, San Juan de Ortega.

On our way to finding our room for tonight, we stopped at a nice bar and had cafe con leche and a variation of our usual tostadas, with Jim having a small baguette with chorizo and egg.

We used the bar as a base camp as Jim ventured off, packless, to find our Pencion. Not an easy task, after 15-20 minutes and aid from two pedestrians, a shop worker and two policemen our obscure destination, Hostal La Numantina (60€) was located.

Our double room is spacious, new, clean and has a balcony with clothesline, wifi is strong and has the best shower we’ve experienced thus far… and therefore not too pricey considering its location in city center.

Chores completed, we had ensalada mixtas at one of hundreds of nearby bars for lunch, followed by a visit to Iglesia de Santiago en Real, a visit to a large fresh market, a walk and sitting in the shade at Espolón Square and nap (Jim) and reading (Linda) for the rest of the afternoon.

For supper, we had to wait until 8:00, since all eating establishments close at 4:00 and reopen at 8:00.  There are at least several 100 pintxos bars and restaurants within a three block radius of our hotel. All were standing room only at 8:00 and it’s a weekday evening!  I guess everyone gets hungry waiting for dinnertime.  We finally gave up and ordered at a bar where we stood up while splitting four pintxos with a glass of wine.

That wasn’t working so we moved on until finding another restaurant with a half empty table, sat down and sampled two more pintxos and two desserts, before walking back to our room at 9:30 to get some sleep before our hike early tomorrow morning.

• Distance today:                   6.6 mi
• Distance Camino 2017:     97.9mi

A few minutes after leaving Torres del Rio we began a rollercoaster ride. A 3 mile rollercoaster ride going up and down and up and down with very short intervals of flatness to recover. The good news was the mostly absent sun. Every time we reached a peak, the ever rising sun got stronger, but we then headed down again to a bottom then back up again, all the time shaded by the hills around us.

After about 3 miles we carefully maneuvered our way down a steep hill with over a dozen, steep switchbacks into an apparent valley and took advantage of the reprieve to munch a walking breakfast of a tortilla (frittata) in a baguette. We know, it doesn’t sound all that appetizing, but with growling stomachs, it was delicious and gave us a needed burst of energy for what came next.

Coincident with swallowing our last bites, the valley stroll changed into the steepest climb of the morning as we inched back up to the top into the sun and adjacent to a two lane highway that has shadowed the Camino since Roncesvalles.

The shade gone now, we put on our hats and walked the next mile or so either beside or on the asphalt pavement, which fortunately had scant auto/motorcycle traffic on this Sunday (Domingo) morning.

Just before we arrived at Viana, the Camino veered away from the highway and we followed a dirt path until entering the town limits at 9:45 am.

Viana is dominated by the Iglesia Santa María de la Asunción, a very large Gothic style church built between 1250-1312. It’s massive door was locked, unfortunately typical of many churches on the Camino ( go figure), so we took some outside photos of the impressive structure and moved on.

The Camino continued along Rua de Santa María through this delightful walled town with attractive cafes which specialize in pintxos. Our brunch, lunch and dinner consisted of a variety of pintxos sampled at cafes, mere steps from Pencion San Pedro, our Viana residence for the next 20 hours.

We had a brief panic when Linda’s backpack wasn’t included with those delivered to our hotel. The hotel manager got on the phone and tracked it down and arranged to have it expedited to our hotel, averting a potential issue. The pack was delivered a couple of hours after we checked in and Jim left Linda to catch up on her routine activities, while he ventured out into the town and began sampling pintxos and tinto (red Navarre wine). After verifying they we were indeed in a pintxos paradise, Jim returned to the room and with Linda sought out one of true delicacies of the Camino Frances.

An extraordinary Camino moment occurred while we were savoring our pintxos. First, a 70+ (young) something Spanish serenader began singing with a opera quality voice, personally serenading various people seated at tables lining the Rua Santa María outside the cafes. After several marvelous performances, a lady at one of the tables began singing with him, she with an equally professional voice. They appeared to be singling out people who they knew and making a personal tribute to them in the serenade.

This was all impromptu and just folks enjoying themselves and each other.  Several other male and females joined in and we sensed we were in the midst of an opera. We did not know any of the pieces they were singing, but we couldn’t help but become engaged as teary eyes appeared in several singers and listeners alike. It was a very moving experience and helped us appreciate the lifestyle and values of this community and others that have based their existence on supporting pilgrims on the Camino Frances for over 1000 years.

With smiles on our faces and our pintxo appetites sated (for today), we relaxed outside the Cafe la Rua in the warm, dry afternoon shade for just a while longer before retiring to our room for the day.