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Camino Day 10 – Navarrete to Nájera. Cool day, cool place!

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Saturday 26 August 2023 – What a day it’s been! The fierce heat of the past days has subsided to the extent we almost got rained on, what I thought would be an unexceptional walk provided some interesting moments and the destination was unexpectedly awesome.

The Posada Ignatius somewhat let itself down with a very disappointing breakfast experience. We’d asked for breakfast at 0730, but the restaurant staff clearly didn’t get the memo. Someone turned up several minutes after we did and rustled up some “toast” that was still soggy (from being frozen) in one corner, with a little butter and jam – and we provided our own tea bags. A shame, after such a stellar lunch the day before.

No matter; we were on our way at 0800 in cool, cloudy weather – about 19°C and a hint of rain in the air.

After the fan-oven experiences of the previous days, this was very welcome, and the whole walk, some 16km, was conducted in comfortable temperatures. In fact, we did the whole thing in one hit; there was a possible detour for a refreshment break, but we both favoured keeping going. The path was decent for almost all of it, and there were almost no gradients steeper than gentle. I was a bit surprised by this, as the course profile looked like this:

so I had my poles at the ready from the start, but really only got any benefit from them for about 100m in the middle.

Items of interest on the way included: the (presumably reconstructed) portal of the San Juan de Acre church whose excavated site we saw yesterday, now being used for a cemetery;

a different, and much older-looking style of marker post for the Camino;

several rows of vines with their grapes lying on the ground;

(this puzzled us, particularly in light of other rows which had obviously been picked by machine but with no discarded grapes.

The mystery was solved by a friend who explained that production has limits placed on it, to maintain supply/demand/prices, so overproduction is simply discarded and left to rot);

some decent views, although often the scenery was Too Big To Photograph;

a formal viewpoint, accessed by steps

but still clearly a Work In Progress, as they hadn’t provided the info board;

Guardaviñas de Alesón, a shelter, originally built for vine farmers or guards

but now finding more regular use as a general shelter for pilgrims;

Poyo de Roldan, a platform marking a “David v Goliath” style battle between the knight Roldan (possibly Roland, leader of the Franks?) and the giant Ferregut

now doing service as a platform for a telecoms aerial; a poem on a wall;

(“Pilgrim, who calls you?” – put your phone on silent, I say); a couple of charming offerings to pigrims, one from Paulino

and the other having, as a backdrop, the very considerable industrial outskirts of our destination town, Nájera. The cadence of the town’s name is the same as the word “knackered”, not that we were.

This shows that we were nearing our destination, which at first blush is not a prepossessing sight

but the modern exterior soon gives way to the old town at a very clear boundary.

We crossed the river, and this gave us a nice view of the distinctive red stone cliffs which form the backdrop to Nájera.

More of the cliffs later.

Our hotel is the Hotel Duques de Nájera. Our room wasn’t ready for us, which gave us a good excuse to go and find coffee and a sandwich. Yes, and a beer for me. Well, two, actually. I wanted to make sure I staved off dehydration from not having had any water during the walk today. Yes, really.

Having taken possession of our (nice, large air-conditioned) room, we found that, for the second day running, we had managed to synchronise our need for A Nice Lunch with the local restaurant ecosystem’s circadian rhythms. At our first restaurant, we arrived at exactly the same time as another couple. Not wanting to be impolite and rush in, we let them go first – and they took the only remaining table. Hah! Fortunately, by the riverside, there are lots of cafés and restaurants so we still had a good meal.  Then we went for a walk. Obviously.

Once away from the humdrum outskirts, Nájera is a quirky place.

They also have this

which the Powers That Be label thus

but I think there’s tree of them. Thank you.  Thank you for listening to my joke.

Jane, as ever reading around and ahead, had identified two sites of interest – the monastery, Monasterio Santa Maria la Real, and a cave city in the cliffs.

The Cave City, constructed by an ancient civilisation as a defence capability, consists of a series of linked caves in the red stone cliffs behind the town.

It is only possible to visit them on a special guided tour, meaning we couldn’t get close.  But I had my drone back in the hotel room, didn’t I?  So I went and got it.

Since I had it with me, I also took some aerial footage of the monastery.

The monastery, as well as being huge and as impressive inside as it is outside, also has considerable historical importance in its role in the development of the various kingdoms of Spain.  The first construction on the site dates back to the 11th century, it has had various bits fall off and be redeveloped, and was declared a national monument in 1889, since when its fortunes have been assured. Wiki has good information about it.

As you can see from the video, there are several areas, prime among them being the cloisters

and the church, which is lavishly appointed.

The church extends back into the cliffs, with a cave, in which was discovered an image of the Virgin Mary

which was fully restored in 1948. There are many other exquisite things in the monastery, too; too many, really, to share to do it justice. You’ll just have to visit yourself – it’s worth it. If you’re into that kind of thing, of course.

That just about sums up the day – another good one. After a start which saw us walking alone with no other pilgrims in sight, we have started once again to note some familiar faces in the pilgrims we do encounter. We chatted briefly to a Dutch chap called Henk, who joined us in our post-walk refreshment before moving on to his destination.

Generally, the superpower I have whilst cycling seems to have manifested itself whilst walking, too.  On a bicycle, all I have to do is to note to myself that I haven’t been overtaken for a while, at which point a faster cyclist materialises behind me. I mentioned to Jane as we walked out through Logroño’s outskirts that no-one had wished us “Buen Camino”, at which point the next three people we met did just that; and today I ventured to remark that there were no other peregrinos around, and one materialised behind us immediately.  It’s uncanny.

Today’s stats are that we covered 16.4km, bringing our total to 194.5km, just about 120 miles. Tomorrow continues in the vein of ever-longer walks.  We have to get to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, some 22km away, via an overall uphill route which I’m sanguine shouldn’t be too arduous. Accuweather, which seems to have been pretty much on the money here, asserts that the temperature will peak at 21°C, with the possibility of rain after 2pm. Oh, and thunderstorms. It’ll be a longish day and I hope we can avoid the rain.

Let’s see how it turns out, shall we?

Camino Day 9 – Logroño to Navarrete

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Friday 25 August 2023 – I realise that today is the 10th day of our peregrination, but yesterday was a rest day, and today will be the 9th day of walking. So I propose to use that approach to define my numbering convention, it that’s OK with you? Good, thank you.

The forecast for today showed a significant change was due.

We decided we’d trust Accuweather and thus not aim to start too early. This gave us the opportunity for a decent breakfast – indeed, the breakfasts at this hotel have been the best of the Camino so far; they even provide Twinings Earl Grey, which says a lot about their utter class.

Suitably fuelled, but somewhat miffed at the €75 laundry bill for three pairs of shorts, two shirts and a blouse (which weren’t even delivered until about 9.30pm yesterday). we headed out.  The temperature at the start of breakfast was 22°C. At the end of breakfast – 22°C.  As we moved out at 8am – 22°C. Very encouraging.

The way out of Logroño wended its way through the suburbs – it was about 4km until we reached what might be called countryside.  But it was a pleasant walk, past a couple of landmarks we’d seen before

“Goose Game” Plaza

“Pilgrim with stamps” Mural

Pilgrim Statues near the city walls

Our way was guided by waymarks that seem to be specific to this region, some more obviously so than others.

The path was pleasant, leading through parks

until after about 4km we came to the outskirts and caught a view of what might be called “countryside” for the first time.

The path was pleasantly shaded for the most part

and led us by a lake, Grajera.

OOh, look! They have swans here, too!

There was “wild” life to look at

and in one place it was clear that Officer i/c Yellow Painted Camino Arrows needed to sharpen his/her act up a bit.

Felisa (you remember, her outside Logroño) clearly isn’t the only eccentric, as we passed by the Ermita of Marcelino, a “trainee pilgrim”.

At first we wondered whether there was anyone there, but he was off having a slash in the bushes and came back to stamp our Credenciales

and sell us a banana and a Camino badge. Completely bonkers, but a lovely dedication to duty. He even had his own Camino signpost.

We had a bit of a pull up to the high point of the day’s walk, which gave us nice views, including one back over towards our start point.

The path led past a long stretch of fencing which passing pilgrims had decorated with crosses, mainly made of bark stripped from a local sawmill.

As well as the bark, people had also improvised.

At the top. we caught sight of something that can be seen across Spain.

There are 91 of these “Osborne Bulls” across Spain. Originally, they were advertising billboards for Brandy de Jerez, designed by the Osborne Group (the second oldest company in Spain, founded in 1772 by Thomas Osborne Mann, an Englishman from Exteter) in the 1950s. EU law forbids billboards advertising alcoholic drinks, but the billboards were thought to be so magnificently Spanish that they were allowed to remain, albeit with the advertising blacked out.  This particular “Bullboard” is some 14m tall.

Shortly afterwards, we got our first view of Navarrete.

On the approach, there’s a signficant Bodega by the Camino trail

and there is the option of going for a wine tasting.  We don’t drink wine any more, so passed up the opportunity, but had to admire the care that Don Jacobo went to to remind the passer-by of what it does

and even, in this Instagram-obsessed world, to provide a selfie spot.

Sigh.

We also passed an excavated site dating from the middle ages, a pilgrim hospital and church, dedicated to San Juan de Acre.

And then we were in Navarrete.

Its curved streets make it very attractive, but it seemed quiet. Too quiet.

Then, to our relief

we discovered evidence of civilsation.

Our hotel, the Posada Ignatius, has quite a history. The founding father of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola, resided in the building from 1517 to 1521 when he was a knight under the orders of Antonio Manrique de Lara, Duke of Najara. He staged a pilgrimage of his own across Spain, and the house is at the crossing point of two Camino trails – the one we’re on and, you guessed it, the Ignatius Camino.

We had a very friendly  greeting from Maria, and our room was ready, so we were able to relax and enjoy the fact that, for once, our schedule and Spanish opening hours combined in ideal fashion. There is a restaurant attached to the hotel. It’s called El Figón del Duque, which, as far as we can tell, means “The Duke’s Cheap Restaurant”. This is a misnomer. It’s a sensational place to eat, absolutely a destination restaurant.  It’s small, only 30 covers, but well-appointed

and, being in the cellar, delightfully cool. The chef is Colombian and clearly understands food and flavours. We had a lovely meal.

In order to walk the meal off, and since the temperature outside was a positively arctic 35°C, we went to visit the church, Iglesia Santa Maria de la Asunción, which is, to be honest, pretty much the only Thing To Do in Navarrete – it’s attractive enough to walk along the streets, but there are many empty spaces behind façades and some abandoned houses. The presence of a 3-star hotel and a great restaurant/guest house gives us hope that the place is on the way up – perhaps the Camino traffic will sustain and nurture it.

Relics of a distinguished past can be seen in the armorial crests above some of the doors.  Navarrete gives good crest.

The town square outide the church is quite nice, also.

Anyway, the church.  It’s quite substantial, with a huge door surround, viewing of which was so obscured by the trees in the main square that I went and got the drone to take its photo.

While I was at it, I got some other aerial footage of it, and you can see what a huge presence it has.

The inside is equally impressive.  The altar is amazing – so amazing that we went back to the hotel for a €1 coin so that Jane could turn on the illuminations.

It’s an exquisite piece of work, that altar.

Here are some of the other things that the church has to show:

including, last but not least, Saint James in his pilgrim persona: Santiago Peregrino.

In reading around the subject, Jane discovered that James the Apostle has another, more sinister representation, Santiago Matamoros, “The Moor Slayer”. At the top of the portal of the Santiago church in Logroño, you can see him depicted as a knight on horseback, brandishing a sword and trampling Moors underfoot.

This identification originated with the saint’s miraculous appearance at the battle of Clavijo in 844, and three centuries later the Order of Knights of Saint James of Compostela was founded to drive the Muslims from the Iberian peninsula. Having been recast as a Christian warrior and Spanish icon, Saint James has come a long way from the Galilean fisherman of the gospels.

There’s a good Guardian article on the enigma of Saint James, should you wish to explore his various representations. That of Slayer of Moors is now, I read, thoroughly rejected.

So that was Navarrete, something of a surprise. I was expecting a routine walk to a routine small town with not much to write home about. How wrong I have been!

Let me bring you up to date with the stats.  After  Logroño, we had covered 165 kilometres – just a whisker over 100 miles.  13.1 further km to Navarrete means 178.1km, or just over 110 miles. It seems that the walks to the first rest day were decreasing day by day, but now they are increasing. Today was 13.1km, tomorrow will be over 16km, and the day after even more.

Not that I treat it at all seriously, but the sequence of walks so far has an amusing consequence for my step count.  The Garmin Connect app suggests a step count for each day; if you exceed it, Garmin Connect simply ups it for the next day.  For the first week of the Camino, I’ve been doing between 30 and 40,000 steps a day, and Garmin has been upping the target every day.  The ridiculous consequence of this is that on day 8, the short walk into Logroño, I did 21,607 steps – and failed to meet the Garmin target! Never mind. I don’t care.

Tomorrow, then, we head for Najera, which is overall an uphill walk, though I think not too brutally steep. In any case, the forecast  temperature tomorrow is a positively glacial 26°C with – gasp! – the possibility of a shower! This should make any uphill work much less of a chore.  I may get the chance to compose a write-up about the day or I may not. Tune in to find out, won’t you?

Camino Days 8 and 9 – Viana to Logroño

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Wednesday 23 August 2023 – Long post warning! Two days’ worth!

The forecast for the day was for it to be very hot, later on, but we only had some 10km to cover, so we thought we could treat ourselves to a lie-in and a hotel breakfast. So the alarm went off at 0530, we were first in the breakfast room at 0700 and were on our way at 0730, with the dawn, as ever, behind us.

The walk itself was easy, being almost entirely flat and very short.  There was not much shade, so we were grateful for the serendipity that we had been able to break our journey at Viana, rather than being obliged to carry on; in the afternoon temperatures of yesterday, that final 10km would have been horrid.

Not only was it short in distance, but it was short on scenery, too. You can see what we thought was noteworthy along the way in the Relive video.

There were a couple of points of interest as we went along, though.

The route was, like previous days, very much in Wine Country. We noticed a difference between the cultivation of vines, with some, which looked like old vines, having clusters of grapes low down, near the trunk

whereas others were arranged more like we have been used to seeing in the vineyards of other countries.

One can imagine that the former have to be hand picked where the latter might be machine-harvestable.  We also saw some very young vines, just bring trained along the wires.

The wine theme was front of mind as we changed provinces, too – we left Navarra and entered the Rioja region, or province.

(Spain is divided into both “autonomous communities” (often referred to as “regions”) and “provinces”. There are 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla). Within the autonomous communities, Spain is further divided into 50 provinces. Broadly speaking, the regions handle the legislation and the provinces the administration. So, for example, Catalunya is a region – and a troublesome one, if you happen to be in the Spanish national government – and Barcelona is a region within Catalunya as well as a city within its own region. Rioja – properly called La Rioja – is both a region and a province.) 

I hope you were paying attention as there is a test later…

It’s fairly clear at which point one enters Rioja.

Bottom right of the picture, you can see a stone post, which is quite interesting. It’s the ancient marker of where three regions meet, marked entirely illegibly on the three sides of the triangular post.

Alongside Navarra and Rioja is Pais Vasco, the Basque country.

We passed the Ermita de la Virgen de Cuevas.  “Ermita” has a variety of meanings, from “hermitage” to “shrine”, but whichever this is,

it has some nice tiling

and a very striking mural

which Jane considered had no little inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch.

The waymarking was, like the rest of the Camino so far, very clear, with many official marking posts and/or signposts,

some less formal waymarks,

some novel ways of supplementing the official posts

and some nice encouraging ones.

We saw our second matched pair of pilgrims, too.

These were actually identical twins, so a really matched pair.  This was on the way into Logroño, which, from a distance, is just this modern-looking town, with a wide sprawl.

It’s not until you get close that one can make out landmarks in the Old Town. As you approach, though, there’s a very charming encounter awaiting the weary pilgrim.

Continuing a tradition started decades ago by a lady called Felisa, there is often someone there to greet the pilgrims with a smile and a stamp for their credencial. Felisa died in 2002 and her daughter Maria apparently carried on in her place but has also since died.  I don’t know who greeted us this day, but it was nice to see the tradition respected.

It’s at this point that one can start to make out the Old Town buildings of Logroño.

We crossed the Puente de Pedra to get into the town

with its Information Point – the Punta on the Puente.

and made our way into the old town and to the old main street, Calle Mayor and its eponymous hotel.  It was only 10am at this point, and, unsurprisingly, our room wasn’t ready.  Fortunately, since we’d only had a short walk, we were in reasonable nick and so it wasn’t too much of a hardship to have to wander around Logroño for a while until the hotel called to tell us the room was ready.

In any case, we had some shopping to do.  We needed a pharmacy in order to get some more surgical spirit (for foot maintenance, not thirst quenching, of course) and a supermarket for some fruit and other snacks.  We stumbled into the first pharmacy we saw (like a French city, there is a profusion, so it’s not difficult to find one), and it was very attractively laid out.  I had plenty of time to take a photo as the pharmacist gossipped endlessly with the lady in front of us in the queue.

The supermarket gave us the opportunity to buy what we needed and also to reflect on how difficult it is to get international branding right.

We were a bit peckish so headed for Calle del Laurel, which a friend had told us was a good place for tapas bars, and again serendipity came to our aid as the first bar, the engaging Taberna del Tio Blas

was open and, furthermore, served an extraordinary range of pintxos – the Basque interpretation of tapas. The name derives from “pincho” a spike, since the ingredients are secured with toothpicks.

As we were munching through our selection, we were hailed through the bar’s open windows by a “Camino family” member from our first days on the Camino; a Canadian lady called Lesley, who had made it to Logroño the day before and was having a rest day.  We got chatting over a speciality of the Taberna, a Granita – basically a Rioja-based slush puppy – which both Jane and Lesley thought delicious. I stuck to beer, not because I didn’t like it but because I wanted to stick with what I knew. Lesley confirmed that the final 10km yesterday from Viana was, indeed, brutal, so we were very glad for the way our route had worked out.

Since Lesley and others had made the extra mileage and will now be a stage ahead of us, we wondered if we would now start to build a new “Camino family”. Over the first week, we’d encountered familiar faces on multiple occasions as a cohort moved through the towns and villages.  But now these people are likely to be ahead of us and so I suppose we’ll start getting used to a new set of peregrinos.

En route back to the hotel, who had called us to tell us the room was ready, we ducked into a very striking-looking market building, the Mercado San Blas,

where business was brisk.

Our route back to the hotel took us past the cathedral

with its extraordinary entrance

and equally extraordinary interior.

It even has a Michelangelo painting – kept in a secure and darkened case.

Regrettably, we did’t have a 50 cent coin to use to turn illumination on for the painting; the above was the best I could do, but once again it demonstrates how good mobile phone camera technology is these days – in real life one could barely make out the painting at all.

The hotel, we discovered, is a four-star hotel.  The discerning traveller will know this from various clues: you get two pillows! each!; and the laundry costs a bloody fortune. Oh, how we wished we’d taken up on the offer from Jose in Los Arcos to do our laundry for €1!  To do all our necessary items would have cost hundreds, so we ended up handing over only difficult items like shorts and shirts and doing our own knickers and socks.

And so we took our rest in the hotel.  Los Arcos to Logroño – a 28km-long stage which our organisers fortunately broke into two bite-sized chunks for us – is number 7 of the so-called “Brierley stages”, named after John Brierley, the author of many popular books about the Camino, one of which is helping us along our way with very useful information and insights.  John died in July and Jane noticed that his obituary recently appeared in The Times.

Having rested, we once again fell foul of Spanish dining traditions and Google. We wanted to go out for a decent meal (the hotel may be four-star but it offers neither dinner nor a bar) but it was around 5pm. Google swore that Café Moderno was open and its own website gave us to believe that it served full meals. It was close by – a good thing since the outside temperature was 42°C – so we went there.  It’s a great bar, with a nice vibe

and a wall full of interesting objects,

but all it offered was tapas. We both really wanted a proper meal, with vegetables, so moved on after just a drink.  We tried Restarante Iruña, which Google told us was open; but it was so closed it was actually difficult to find.  However, it was in Calle Laurel and Good old Tio Blas was open so pintxos it was again.

Thus ended the day, with an early night and the prospect of a rest day spent avoiding the heat. Here’s Accuweather’s assessment.

Thursday 24 August 2023 – When we woke at about 8am, the temperature was 20°C. When we sat down to breakfast at 9.30 it was 25°C. By the time we’d finished breakfast it was 30°C. And when we went out at about 11am it was 35°C. As we came back from wandering about it was 40°C and I for one was very glad to get back into the cool of the hotel. But we covered some ground looking around Logroño old town.

Unsurprisingly, this being a pilgrim route, there are many churches. Unsurprisingly, therefore, lots of photos of churches follow. Just so you know.

The first one was the Church of Santa María de Palacio, which was actually being thoroughly worked on by builders, and so was half screened off, with the Important Bits brought into the working half of the church for services.

There were a couple of lovely stained glass windows

which cast nice light.

We also visited San Bartolome church, the oldest church in Logroño

which has an amazing 13th-century porch.

Inside is not opulently decorated

and features a noted carving of Christ on the cross.

The final church we visited was the church of Santiago el Real.

The pavement outside, popularly known as Plaza de la Oca, displays a representation of the “Game of the Goose“. Pilgrims can “play” the stages of the Camino de Santiago and its most representative monuments. This mosaic game was made in 1991 by Ricardo González, with the collaboration of the sculptors Félix Reyes and Pepe Iglesias. Here’s a fragment of the game as laid out in the plaza.

Beside the plaza is the Santiago fountain, also known as the Pilgrim’s Fountain.

This church also has a magnificent doorway.

We stepped inside, but a service was under way, so I just grabbed a shot and we left as discreetly as we could.

Logroño has another religion besides Christianity – wine. One thing I hadn’t appreciated until very recently is that it’s the capital of the Rioja region. The Camino runs along one road, Calle Ruavieja, which was a centre of small-scale wine production since medieval times, home to several wine cellars, mainly built in the 16th century. Some of the old bodegas are still there, albeit no longer active.

 

There is a museum on this road called “El Camino del Viño” which gives an engaging insight into the traditional ways of making wine, based around an excavation of one of the buildings, showing the pits where grapes were unloaded, trampled or pressed, turned into wine and stored.

Presses and other equipment from the 18th century are also on display, and across the street an ancient cellar from which hospitality would be offered to the pilgrims of yesteryear.

As we walked around, we saw a lot of street art (among the ubiquitous graffiti).

and there was one very striking mural to be seen,

showing a figure covered in Credencial stamps, including (if you look carefully) Felisa’s.

We’ve seen a lot more and wandered surprisingly far and wide, given that the temperature was 40°C – city walls, pilgrim statues, the Rioja Museum (which is about the history of the region, not the wine), but I feel I’ve regaled you with enough (probably too much, actually) about our time here in Logroño.

We move on tomorrow – a shortish walk of about 13km to Navarrete. Accuweather predicts cooler temperatures – all the way down to 30°C! We’re hoping for a light day to ease us back into the habit of daily walking until our next rest day.  I might bring you an update tomorrow, so better get some rest in just in case, eh?