Logroño and Nájera

Another two day update, as the days lately have been very full and rather tiring.

Yesterday started off with a very hilly section, making all of us glad that we'd pushed further the night before, so that we were able to do this in the cool of dawn instead of with the sun beating down on us. Even with that benefit, it was a long walk to the first town on the trail. The town was worth it though, with a beautiful cathedral and possibly our favorite bakery on the Camino so far. We were very sad the bakery didn't have any stamps to add to our Camino passports, but it didn't make the pastries any less sweet.

All the hills had not been kind to my ankle, but the rest of the day promised to be flatter, and thankfully everything remained manageable. The rest of the day was more walking, but the extra distance we'd covered the day before meant that we got into Logroño in the early afternoon. This was good for two reasons: One, we had more time to explore one of the bigger cities in the route. And two, it meant we could get food before everything shut down for siesta.

We were actually too early to even check in to out albergues, so we walked around and saw one of the four churches, then went and checked in. At this point everyone was pretty knackered, so a lot of folks crashed fairly hard. I ended up going to Domino's, the pizza chain, after I found out they had a pilgrim meal menu and decided that I both had to try that, and wanted some familiar comfort food. It was good, and I got to have a very nice talk with another pilgrim who had come along with me.

They had a Michaelangelo painting!

Once everyone's spirits had recovered somewhat, a number of folks got together for a night on the town. We saw the central park, the remaining two churches which were open, an old underground wine storage tunnel, the town museum, and then it was finally time for restaurants to open back up for dinner.

We (or more properly, my companions) did a wine tasting, after which we went to Calle Laurel, a street known for its pintxos (tapas, basically), and proceeded to bounce from place to place, ordering whatever looked good. It was delicious, and a nice way to end the day on the town. On our way back we stopped at the supermarket to stock up for the next morning, as it was going to be another long day, then we called it a night. I decided I was too tired to write a blog post, and went right to bed.

The next day, we set out bright and early at 7:00 AM. Though in this case, "bright" is rather misleading, as the sun was not up when we began, and did not arrive on the scene for some time. Once again, it was a long ways to the first town, over 10km today. We did get to walk through a very pretty park and past what I believe was a nunnery on our way out of town. Additionally, as my ankle was still bugging me, one of my companions was kind enough to let me take one of their ibuprofens, which helped dramatically for the rest of the day.

At our midday stop, we visited the town church and got pastries, which is becoming something of our midday routine of late. Then it was back to walking, but we had a choice to make. The direct route went along the highway and had no more towns to stop in, but we could choose to add one kilometer to add a stop around halfway, or two kilometers to add some stops and avoid most of the highway. We opted to only add one, and took a quick early lunch break there before continuing on.

The last stretch before stopping for the day is becoming notorious as the hardest, which is perhaps obvious, but it's surprising just how different it is from the rest of the walk. Once you feel like you're almost there, you stop just walking and start counting down the kilometers until you can put your bag down. Eventually we made it, but the final few kilometers almost felt longer than the first ten.

Once again, people crashed a bit when we arrived, then spirits rallied. We went out and saw the local church, which had a gorgeous altarpiece, as well as tombs for a number of old Spanish kings. On our way back we stopped at a pharmacy and shoe store, trying to help one of our companions with her foot pain, then at the grocery store to grab snacks and things for tomorrow. (Including, in my case, the largest palmier I've ever seen, which I simply couldn't resist.)

It turned out to be a good thing we'd bought snacks, as the restaurants in this town close at 4:00, and don't reopen until 8:00. That was too late for us, as we were starving! We snacked hard, and had a lovely time with the albergue owners, one of whom cooked some chestnuts for us, which were delicious. In return, we sang him a halting rendition of "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire", which both the owners enjoyed.

At 8:30, some folks went out for dinner, but I felt my energy levels drop and decided to simply turn in early. I got ready for bed, wrote this blog post you're reading now, and will be heading to bed as soon as it's done. Tomorrow we're planning to stay in a monastery, which should be quite interesting.