William Struth

Today, we made a quick trip to Inverness with some time to explore the old town and get a cup of coffee to warm up. While we were in town, we went on the wobbly bridge, which was built by a local iron company to show off their products. I had to pick up some supplies from a local pharmacy for my cold. Then the bus took us along Loch Ness, and we stopped at Urquhart Castle to see the ruins and to have some lunch and see the wonderful views from there. No Nessy, though.

Then we went to over the West Highland mountains and stopped at a beautiful viewpoint where we were told of the 5 sisters who wished for immortality and were turned into a mountain range. Next stop was Eilean Donan Castle for a quick photo op and finally on to the island of Skye. On Skye, we stopped for a rest break and got to see Sassy Mary's castle before we got to our hotel.Read more

Well, we left as planned, and none of the people we met decided to get up when we did. The sunrise was beautiful on the Camino! Although, the French ladies passed us about 2 hours in at a food truck where we were resting. The towns were far apart, and we decided to stock up on some food since it is Sunday. It turns out we did not need to be concerned. There were places open at all the towns we passed through: Santos, Torres del Rio, Vianna, and Logroño, where we stopped. We got serenaded by a classical guitarist outside of Torres Del Rio. Then the weather changed and poured down rain as we were walking into Viana, so we had to get out our ponchos. We walked about an hour in the rain.

We had some good pintxos for lunch in Viana, and then we almost took the bus to Logroño, but we just missed it. When we checked the schedule, we realized we could walk to Logroño before the next bus arrived. My knee almost gave out 100 ft before the hotel. I gave it some rest and walked the rest of the way with some pain. The feast of San Bernabe was starting to wind down, but everyone was still out and enjoying it. 30 k today. Just before Logroño we left the Basque Country and entered La Rioja.Read more

Today, we ramped up the kilometers to go to Los Arcos. On the way out of town, we stopped at a bar for breakfast and ran into Laura, who had stayed at one the albergues we were in a couple of days ago. She was favoring a bad foot and and so we kept it slow all the way to Los Arcos. I needed that, too!

We stopped at the wine fountain, and the bkack smith shop next to it and saw the town of Villamayor, and made it to Los Arcos named after the archers (los arcos) who won the town for the king of Navarre. Laura stayed at the same albergue as we did in Los Arcos: Casa Abuela, and we also met a wonderful couple at dinner from Holland as well as couple of French ladies walking the Camino. Dinner was lentil soup, salad, and ice cream. And water and wine. The big topic at dinner was who was going all the way to Logroño (29 k) and who was going to see the festival there. We decided to get up at 5 am and try and leave at 5:30 in order to get to Logroño as early as possible.Read more