Day 10: 3rd October 2014, Najera to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 21 kms

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Today was a reasonably easy walk so we left the village at about 7.50. The first kilometre was a steep climb out of town, past the church, through the square and out into open country planted out with grapevines. It was a warm day with no cover so it wasn't long before hats and sunblock were the order of the day. Sue's feet were a little better but were tested later on the hills leading to our destination. Downhill is always the hardest, on both feet and knees.

As we clocked up the kilometres it was evident that the vines were slowly being replaced by the remnants of wheat crops; we were leaving the La Rioja wine district. Our first stop was at the small ancient village of Azofra. There we saw Jurgen who we hadn't seen for two days, and Albert. Beth and Connor from Canberra came along shortly after and we had not sighted them since day two so we caught up on news and where others were we missed.

Heading on to Ciruena, another 9.3 kms away was pretty uneventful, following undulating hills of wheat and ploughed earth. This town is a classic example of the Spanish economy. There was a world class golf course and a modern real estate development to accommodate the crowds. Most of it was for sale; we were walking through a ghost town. We attended to our feet here and moved onto our destination, Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

The walk to the old town and our accommodation was through an industrial estate and took longer than expected. We booked into the hostel , run by the Spanish Confraternity of the Camino, and set off to explore the town. It was larger than we imagined and surprisingly had quite high end shops. We did a load of washing, had paella for dinner and were in bed by nine.

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Comments

[greg lilburne]

high end shops Santo Domingo de la Calzada
But did they have a Foodworks with a delightfully polite ,efficient lady called debbie serving you . l think not