Crossing the Upper Rioja

---

By the way, I meant to write at the beginning of this blog that we aren´t looking for sponsorship for the Camino. However, 2 of Philippa´s class mates from Ecclesbourne - Matt Tingle and Chris Gascoyne - have just completed a sponsored Tandem ride from London to Paris to raise money for CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) one of Phil´s charities. So if you do feel like contributing to this vital cause, i´m enclosing the link. It is



Monday April 30th - Logroño to Ventosa

A wonderful dinner with American Debra in an Italian restaurant in Logroño on Sunday night meant that our start for Ventosa on Monday morning was a little sluggish! We promptly decided to have a 48 hour break from the alcohol. Leaving with the dawn, the walk along Logroño´s quiet streets seemed a litttle surreal , but we were soon out of the town and walking through recreational parkland where we even saw a fisherman landing what appeared to be a large eel. On through pretty countryside and over the obligatory steep rise to Navarette, where we breakfasted on toast,tea and coffee.

Tuesday May 1st - Ventosa to Santo Domingo de la Calzada

We walked on through lovely countryside and eventually arrived at our intended destination (Azofra) at 11.15 am! As you can imagine we felt that it would be a waste of a day if we stopped so early, so we decided to walk on to Santo Domingo. In order to cut off an extra 5 kms we decide to stick as close to the N120 as possible. We found a path which seemed to follow it clos¡ely but the it turned into a motorway under construction! Luckily, be¡ng May 1st, the construction teams were on holiday, but I half expected the Guardia Civil to come and tell us off for being there! We did have to walk alongside the main road for a couple of kilometres

---