Blogs from Pamplona, Navarre, Spain, Europe - page 8

Thursday 9th September: Woke up about 5.30am this morning. Tried to sleep, but awake is awake for me these days so I got up and started getting ready for the day ahead. I am mostly sleeping in the clothes I am going to wear the next day so getting ready is not too arduous.  Just the usual - cleaned my face and teeth, packed up my bag, and had a bite to eat.  Well had a few bites to eat of everyone else's food - Robert gave me a couple of biscuits and Marco gave me half of his croissant. Everyone is so lovely and sharing here. In that spirit I gave Tobias a pair of earplugs that I had spare because he didn't have any.  Amazing how awake and sharing we all are so early ... read more

Our car/taxi/ two train trip to San Sebastion was successful with the 2 x 29ers, they are staying together really well and all up doing a great job, actually we have our Mern to thank a bit for that as he did take a little parcel back to the UK for us to ship back home, thanks again mate. I really thought I had been pretty lean and mean with the packing but once you hit the road of long distance travel you soon realise, you can only wear so many things and you really don´t need a whole lot more ,and a whole lot more baggage,just means more to worry about and more to carry!!! Our first encounter with Spain was such a good one , when on arrival in San Sebastion we stopped ... read more

Hola, Well what a time we had at Pamplona. Beat all our expectations. We left little Otley very early on sunday morning (6.30am) and jumped onto a bus to london, after 4 and a half hours on that we caught a train to the pub where we were meeting out tour group and managed to fit in 2 beers before we jumped on another bus (2.30pm) for a 23.5 hour bus ride and ferry journey to Spain. Very very long, especially for us with the travel we had already done before hand. We were allowed to drink on the bus. Our plan of getting drunk first and falling asleep so no one annoyed us didn;t really work and we were pretty much kept up all night by a few lads that were extra excited. Didn't matter ... read more

A night out. Beer and sangria. Meeting people. Talking. the sky bright blue, then darker, then deep ocean blue. Could have seen fishes swimming in the sky. But that would have been the sangria spirits talking. Traipsing around with a Scottish guy and an Irish guy. Funny friendly guys. It was great, because lots of talk of literature and theater. One guy: "Oh, I liked Joyce, but now I´m over that.." Please, dude. Gavin from Ireland is in love with Steinbeck. Robin from Scotland likes to do Jack Nicholson impressions. Refuses to do "Herés Johnny" from The Shining because, well, "everybody does that one." Met two girls, Aussie and NZ. Accents indistinguishable to me. Like American and Canadian, they say. One of them had pink nailpolish and it was wearing off. Don´t ask my why I ... read more

We had a pretty ambitious drive planned for the day, so we decided to take a little more of the A & N roads which would save some time when we need it in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Pamplona is a large city so we used the by-pass. Mike & I would have run with the bulls if it had been the right time of the year; but it was not. Lynn had mentioned Sos del Rey Catolico early in the trip planning, but we debated if time would permit, as it was off the main road and require a back-track. This trip was for research of her next book and Sos was the 1452 birthplace of Fernando II of Aragon, surely a place worthy of a visit. If you travel in this area, make ... read more