Day 8: Los Arcos - Logroño

The big day begins! Today was the longest walk so far, about 28km to the city or Logroño. Sunrise today was absolutely beautiful. I kept a pretty sharp pace in the morning doing only brief coffee stops before arriving in Viana, where I saw the Florians and Maik!

I'd never caught Maik before as he's always out early and had a decent pace on him, so that was an achievement. Viana was a beautiful little stop and Maik and I walked the rest of the day together. An absolutely lovely guy from Rostok Germany.

We chatted about Maik doing the Camino with his foster daughter, and some of the challenges he's had. There's a 12 year old German boy walking at the moment which Maik thinks may a foster child accompanied with a social worker. He said he'd like to do this as well, bringing kids on the Camino and give them some good grounding early in their life, hopefully preventing challenges later on. Great guy.

The last 5 kilometres today really stretched out, but we kept a sharp pace before arriving in beautiful Logroño. It was kind of nice to be in a slightly larger city, and as he went for a beer we found Laurent in the main square and sat down for a chat.

Post siesta I headed out to Decathlon and bought a new backpack. Absolute incredible amount of difference! Felt like I was floating. All the weight off my shoulders and the straps no longer cutting into my waist. Some of the best 70 euros i've ever spent. Our hospitalero, a lovely 80 year old Spanish man, also seemed quite taken with my bag, so gone to a good home!

For dinner we went to Calle del Laurel, an awesome street full of bars and restaurants. Turns out tomorrow is the National Day of Spain, so it was absolutely heaving! Such a cool vibe and nice to be back in a city with some life. A dinner highlight was Benjamin biting into what he thought was a dessert brioche, but what looked like chocolate turned out to be black aioli, topped with squid!Read more