We started early this morning. It’s a beautiful day! We are surrounded by rolling hills, olive trees and vineyards. Very peaceful and quiet as the sun rises behind us. This section of the walk is called the “knee wrecker” because of its ups and downs.
Observation: We walk at such different paces. It seems as though some rush to reach their destination without stopping to take in the beauty of the surroundings along the way, while others take their time. We take rest breaks not only to let the sore shoulders and knees recover, but to enjoy a coffee, tea or a beer and visit with our fellow pilgrims. We have no deadlines, so we can take our time, enjoy the scenery, branching off to visit the fascinating historical places that line this route. We rest every few hours, stopping at cafes along the way. Is it the journey or is it the destination? For us it’s the journey.
After six miles of walking up and down hills, we arrived in a town called Vianna, now celebrating its 800th birthday. They were preparing for the “running of the bulls.” We really loved this town. We enjoyed our mid morning breakfast sandwich, tea and coffee in one of several cafes, across from the large church and near the town square while chatting with quite a few other Pilgrims. Then the final leg of today’s journey which takes us to a larger city, Logrono.
Our friends from Holland, Jitty and Margarita are leaving the Camino today. We’ve enjoyed them and will miss them. We ran into Senne and her group – most are leaving the Camino here also. While the others are returning home to Denmark, Senne is continuing on to Santiago, again. This is Senne’s 14th time on the Camino Frances, and she’s done two other Camino’s in France, and three weeks on two other Camino’s in Spain.
Logrono is a large city: For Sara it’s among her favorites.
Tonight we connected with Gil and Janine, our friends from Melbourne, Australia, who joined us for bar hopping and “pinchos” (tapas). What a beautiful evening. Sara tried a local delicacy at one of the bars: Pig snout. It was crispy and hard – eat with your hands – tasted a little like bacon. She was squeamish about the bristly snout hairs, so she ate around them. The streets were packed with young and old, sharing drinks and sampling prepared delicacies of all kinds. We had not been personally invited to the party, but we loved it all the same.
