Blogs from Nájera, La Rioja, Spain, Europe

Last night I waited for Raresh to show, for dinner, but when he did, he was with a Spanish pilgrim named Juan and they had bought stuff to make dinner. So, I went looking for someplace with interesting tapas and found a great place called El Gitano Loco. I ordered 3 tapas; one of stuffed eggs, one of croqueta, and one of paella, for a total of 6 euros with a soda. Everything was delicious and I left stuffed. See the photo to get a better idea of what there was. We left Logrono about 6:15 for our long walk of about 30 kilometers. Around 10 kilometers later we reached Naverrete and stopped for breakfast at the Bar Caminante, passing the ruins of an old church/pilgrims hospital. After my usual tortilla and coffee breakfast, we headed ... read more

1 October 2015, Tuesday. Stage 9 tomorrow is a rest day! GPS: 11.1 miles, moving 4 hours 19 minutes, left 0830 arrived 1400 so 5 hours 30 minutes from hotel tp hotel Fitbit: 10.96 miles, 71 floors, 25,093 steps 1 September, Tuesday , Navarette to Najera ('place between rocks' from Arabic) GPS This day might just be memorable for the worst breakfast on the camino. When there is such great. bread and morning pastries why do we have packaged muffins and coffee con leche that is so-so. Ah, we are getting very spoiled! Served at Villa de Navarette; room fine but no food. Out of town and past the cemetery. Here we have a masterful example of recycling. The splendidly carved 13th century entrance gateway has been relocated from the ruins of the hospice of San ... read more

Today we are walking to Najera about 19 kms from Navarette. It was a thriving furniture making town in the 1970s and '80s but the 1990s saw a downturn and there are only a few factories left. We left Navarette at about 8am as it is was only a short walk and walked up the main road for about 600 metres before turning left on a track that took us through vineyards and olive groves. We saw African workers picking grapes alongside some Spanish men, ready for the famous wine presses of La Rioja and we sampled a couple of grapes near the track and they were very sweet. The path today is a combination of gravel farm roads and rich red earth tracks along the vineyards. The weather was warm but pleasant and with Sue's ... read more

Around 530am the people in the room starter waking up. Some noise of sleepingbags being put away, backpack zippers closing and metal bedframes bending under the weight of the person on the top bunk. It was a hot night and I didn't sleep well, but I was ready to take on 18km today if Thomas was able to conplete it. The deal was to make it to the next town 8km away and see how he was feeling. Backpack packed and shoes on we left again before the sun even started showing. Looking for yellow painted signs pointing us in thr right direction, making our way out the small town we got back into wine country... we joked along the way about the amount of grapes we saw amd in no time made it to the ... read more

No, not Geoffrey Blainey... Over the last three day´s I´ve put in some fairly heavy kilometres (although not as many as some freaks - more about them later). 30, 35 and 30 over the last three days have made me feel a bit footsore and a little less gushing in my enthusiasm for the scenery, the weather, the food, OH LOOK AT THE SHAPE OF THAT CLOUD, OMG!!!!! - that kind of thing. 95 kilometres and a chest cold will knock that right out of you. But, you know, there is a little bit of martyr´s pride about it - until I remember that I´ve basically walked from my front door to Seymour - which seems just a bit sad. So here´s the thing - that distance seems so much further because I walked it (along ... read more