Estella - another beautiful day!

We have walked another 23 kms! We have it down to a fine art, and stop and have breaks, smell the roses, and arrive not too worn out. It was quite a hard walk - I sort of remembered from before, but every 5 years it seems to get even harder! There was a lot of up and down - up to the hilltop towns, then down to the rivers…and walking in to Estella is a long slow process - you know it’s only about 2 kms, but there is no sight of civilisation - it only appears at the last minute, tucked in the valley. A lovely little town, but the camino really just passes one end. Our hotel, where we have now stayed 3 times, is at the other end, about a km off the camino, so we get to see inside and enjoy it. We had a beer in the main square on our way in, as once at the hotel we knew we wouldn’t be leaving. It’s a great hotel, in a not great part of town opposite a brickworks, though from our room we have a lovely view of the surrounding mountains. And it has a coin operated laundry so Amr is officiating and has put a load on!

So our walk today was again through beautiful countryside - more and more of the grain crops (I asked some Spanish walkers what it was and they just said “cereal” and when I said wheat they said yes, but I am not sure). But there are still the very decorative rapeseed fields, and lots of broad beans! Amr has an app which tries to identify flora, and I was so happy to have it confirmed that they were indeed fava bean plants which I remember from my childhood!

We left Puente la Reina this morning over the famous puente, and it was quite cold - about 6° - but we didn’t take fleeces, and were soon taking off another layer…it gets quite hot, especially when walking, but deliciously gets cool again as the sun goes down. Looking at the forecast it will be hotter in the next few days, even in upper 20s…hope we’ve moved past that by then! Maybe our fleeces will be packed away for the rest of the trip?
Now back from dinner..pilgrim menu, cheap (€14.50 including wine) and delicious - Amr had highlight, pork knuckle…and I wore my tevas without socks!!Read more