Hurray!! First day done and wonderful!

This has been a wonderful day! We have walked 24.3 kms to Puente la Reina and feel great....that is lying a little, feet and bones a little weary, but nothing that won’t be fixed by a good night’s rest. And, after all that gloom and doom weather forecasting, we had good weather. It did rain lightly as we left, and we wore our ponchos for about an hour. Then we felt it was safe to take them off, and it even got sunny, and high cloud - perfect walking conditions.

It is a wonderful feeling, walking out of Pamplona, through the rolling countryside and little towns. There was one high uphill - the Alto de Perdon - where there are the metal figures of pilgrims, and a vast panorama. We remembered that, and last time in fact it was cold and windy, but it was sunny and lovely today, quite a party atmosphere as many people stopped for a break...that was about 10 kms before Puente la Reina, but we knew we had done the highest climb. In fact coming down on loose stones was harder!!

We passed some sunflower fields, but they are not golden and beautiful as we remember- already they are drooping and getting black - I guess the hot weather has made them “ripen” earlier, as we are only 2 days later than we were last time in September 2013.

So we had a beer even before showering, but now clean and done our washing and enjoying this hotel which we also stayed in last time. Now about to set off and explore this little town. We didn’t last time, as it poured with rain just after we arrived, and we stayed in and didn’t see anything, except in the morning walking out. Will check out the old bridge which was built by the queen (Isabella I think) so that pilgrims didn’t drown crossing the river! Hence the town’s name.

I have some lovely photos and I think I will make an extra footprint later so that I can add more than the 6 allowed. The first one is an art shot that Amr took as we were setting off down the stairs at our hotel this morning - in the mirror! When we got down and at the door we had to put on ponchos as we discovered it was raining! ....The wifi seems to be weak, so will take off a few photos as that’s usually why it has trouble... this is so frustrating- the wifi here is extremely weak..will send emails (slowly), and will do Words with Friends, but will NOT upload this blog, so may have to wait until tomorrow when maybe will have more success. This hotel is very busy, it is a hostel and a hotel, so there are many people using the wifi..maybe when they go to bed it will get better, but I may also be asleep by then...still not downloading, will take off photos and see if that helps...Read more