Jimandi

Walked today: 7.6 mi Camino2023: 117 mi

We arrived early, and could not checkin until 1:00 pm. We decided to have lunch in the hotel bar while we waited for our room.

We met Francois, a young French lawyer from Paris, walking his first Camino, starting from La Puy, France, adding nearly 500 extra miles to his trek to Santiago. He stopped for lunch on his way to Burgos today. We asked him to join us and we shared Camino experiences and photos and chatted until he finished eating and had to get on with his walk.

We got into our room at 1:00 and began our afternoon chores, napping and blogging. We signed up for the evening pilgrim’s dinner at 7:00.

After an enjoyable dinner with 3 other pilgrims, we bid our goodbyes and called it a day.

Walked today: 5.7 mi Camino2023: 109 mi

As prearranged yesterday afternoon, a taxi met us in front of the Parador at 9:00 to take us to Belorado, our destination for the day. When making our reservations for Camino 2023, we were unable to book a place to stay between Santo Domingo and Belorado… a distance of 23 km (14 miles). The only reasonable solution for us was to plan to skip this section (having already walked in it 2014, 2017 and 2019) as opposed to walking the 14 miles in one day.

Also, we are aware that there is only one taxi service with only one driver that covers the area from Cirueña to Belorado. There is also one bus that goes through Santo Domingo to Belorado beginning at 12:40 daily. We met Oscar, the taxi driver, last year and were able to piggyback with another rider to make the same deviation we made today. That’s why we had our host in Cirueña contact him yesterday when we arrived and booked him for the only time he had available for today. The fee for the 20 minute ride was 35€.

Our room would not be ready until noon so we filled the time by re-familiarizing ourselves with this town of 2100 inhabitants on this 5th visit since 2014. We also recharged our supply of euros at one of the three ATM’s in the town square.

Belorado has been settled since Roman occupation and was granted a charter in 1116 that allowed for an annual fair, the first such charter granted in Spain. We arrived in Belorado in 2014 on the day they we’re celebrating this annual fair. We were at first surprised, then overwhelmed and finally joined in on the festivities, which has been one of the fondest memories of our Caminos.

We checked-in to our room at noon, as promised and began our daily chores and rested until 2:30, when we walked downstairs for our main meal of the day in the hotel restaurant.

We ordered from the “Menu Dia” or menu of the day… a two course meal with dessert and bottle of wine or water for 13.50€.

Our dinners were well prepared and tasty and the service was excellent. Another memorable culinary experience for Camino 2023.

We retired to our room for the day, napped, read and blogged until bedtime.

Walked today:10.3 mi Camino2023: 103 mi

After 4.5 miles, we reached the small village of Azofra, (pop 209) and stopped for a breakfast/rest break. It is the only place during today’s walk with services.

We seldom walk 8-10 miles per day on our Caminos, unlike the way we did 8-9 years ago. Instead, we only do so occasionally when the logistics require it and to blow out the carbon from our bodily pistons to boost our subsequent walk power. We also do an occasional walk like today because we can and to help us appreciate the typical 5-7 mile walks more.

After our break at the golf course, Linda considered trying to distract the club pro while Jim attempted to borrow a golf cart to carry us the final mile or so to our hotel rural. But rather than create an international incident, we opted instead to walk the final distance, arriving at our destination at 11:00, where we were welcomed by our hosts for the 5th time.

We had our meals today at the Bar Jacobeo, just a few steps from Casa Victoria on the village square: pizza for lunch and paella for supper.

It was a good day for us on Camino2023.

Walked today: 6.7 mi Camino2023: 93.1 mi

Our walk this morning was almost totally surrounded by vineyards. Other than the relatively short, rocky ascent to Alto de San Anton, the walk was not a challenge for us.

According to legend, the large open field between Nájera and the nearby village of Alesón is the location where the French knight, Roldán and the Syrian giant (9ft tall, 440 lbs) Ferragut did battle to decide whether the Christians or the Moors would rule this part of Spain. It also allowed the French army under Charlemagne to move on to Santiago. Roland prevailed by stabbing the giant in belly button, his legendary weak spot, and went on to become known as the best warrior of Christianity.

We stopped for breakfast on the way into Nájera about 9:30 and texted the apartment we had reserved and were told we could not check-in before noon.

When making our reservations back in April, most of the previous places we had stayed in Nájera were all booked. None of them were that appealing anyway, so we opted for an apartment instead. It turns out that this morning we were eating breakfast only two blocks from the apartment.

To make use of our wait time, we scouted out the immediate area, searching for a grocery store. We found one and did a walk through, planning our lunch, dinner and snack requirements for the day, anticipating that the apartment would have a fully equipped kitchen.

We finally were admitted to the apartment at noon and after a quick inspection of kitchen equipment and any other supplies available, Jim walked to the nearby supermarket with our shopping list. He was also equipped with his prized purchase from Biarritz, over 2 weeks ago, a heavy duty shopping bag.

The shopping bag has already served us well so far on Camino2023, whenever we made purchases that were too awkward to carry in hands or arms, or pockets, like wine, bottled water, multiple small items for snacks, etc.

Jim returned shortly with a full shopping bag and we were all set with fixings for lunch, dinner and a snack sandwich for the walk tomorrow.

The rest of the day was spent napping and cooking and eating.

Tomorrow will be a long walk, so we’ll get to sleep early.

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.

Walked today: 6.6 mi Camino2023: 78.4 mi

We stopped at Iglesia de Santiago Real on the walk into town to get our credentials stamped, but no stamps were to be found in the church, so we continued on.

We stopped at a restaurant on the main street of Logroño for a slow breakfast before getting to our hotel.

We got to our hotel at 10:00 and waited an hour before our room was ready. This was not a problem today because the lobby was cool and a comfortable place to get off our feet. And the wifi was good, so we had plenty to occupy our time as we waited.

After getting into our room, we got showers and then went out in search of pintxos for lunch, a specialty of Logroño.

After a couple of wrong turns, we discovered the section of Logroño where 20-30 pintxo bars are located. After a brief reconnaissance run, we selected a bar, then selected 4 different pintxos and then shared them along with a copa each of red wine.

After lunch, we stopped at a small market and bought some snacks and bottled water for tomorrow, then returned to our room.

The rest of the day was devoted to reading, blogging and napping. We had a light snack supper.

We also treated some mosquito bites due to some voracious insects who apparently invaded our room last night and did some snacking, no, had a banquet (Linda=20, Jim=30+) on both of us last night.