On the road!

Nuestra Senora de Eunate, Navarre

It hasn´t been easy to have access to decent internet for the past three days, but this evening we are in a moderately large town with friendly library, and so there is time to bring you all up to date on the actual walk itself.  We started out on Saturday morning while it was still relatively dark, and finally found a cafe open where we could get the necessary caffeine jolt to bring us up 340 metres though the surrounding hills and past ancient pueblos to the tiny town of Ortega where we thankfully arrived quite early and lodged for the evening in the one and only albergue - thankfully not too crowded so Frank and I at least had lower bunks which we didn´t have to share with others. We slept very soundly and were quite happy to have a lie in as Sunday´s walk was to be extra short.  We had discovered by chance that the nearby 11th C octagonal chapel of Nuestra Senora de Eunate was having its annual Fiesta with special mass followed by a concert,  and a short easy walk brought us there in good time.  A further 5kms and we reachd Puente la Reina our destination that night with big municipal Albergue run by the Redemptorist fathers where things were not quite so spacious, and we were 8 in 4 bunks in a pretty small room but luckily we elders had the pick of the berths once more.  I heard practically all of the church bells til 4.00 this morning, so tonight, happy with our first reasonable 24km hike, we have booked into a simple hotel and will have an extremely good sleep after discovering some more of Estella, an ancient pilgrim town with wonderful old buildings and
this lovely mediaeval bridge. 

The weather has been really good for walking with following breeze and relatively low temperatures.  Grapes and figs grow near the path, and little villages provide welcoming bars for coffee or something stronger.  Now we have come to terms with new boots and our loads, and will try to keep up the 22km daily average. We thank you all again for being with us and will try to keep the updates fairly frequent.

Iglesia San Sepulcro, Estella