Peaceful day in Pamplona

We got up late today - I couldn’t get to sleep for ages last night, was so excited....seems silly, but we are suddenly in the world of Camino and you see walkers, and people say “buen Camino” ...and it IS exciting!. Anyway, in this lovely hotel we had a lovely breakfast which has kept us going all day. Again a perfect temperature- such a relief, and no sign of the predicted thunderstorms for tomorrow....but we are prepared for anything - it will just be a blessing if we don’t get saturated!

So we have had vey pleasant wandering...we walked to the citadel which is now a beautiful park surrounded by the old walls, moats and bridges - had a peaceful kindle time on a seat there. Then we went to the bull ring which is very close to our hotel...we found we could have a tour inside (which we hadn’t done) with an audio guide so we did and it was fun and interesting. I can’t really get into it, but the running of the bulls is such a huge festival here, and I can enjoy the excitement by watching the videos and seeing all the paraphernalia! The Plaza de Toros is immense - can hold about 19,000 people (I think it was in fact 19,720!). I forgot to say, that before the citadel we also went to the cathedral and stamped our Camino passport. It is a lovely building, with fabulous cloisters which fortunately we saw in all their glory last time, as now they are surrounded by scaffolding.

Now it is 5 o’clock and we are having a break before setting out to eat. I am writing up the day now, which i will do each day from now on - in the afternoon when we finish walking rather than just before bed...we plan to eat tonight at an art nouveau cafe on the square...Amr’s favourite decor, and everywhere prices are similar and food good. Tomorrow it all starts....Read more