A Quiet Day in Logroño

Today we have been beautifully vegging…and it has been delightfully cooler. We met at 8.15 and went out to breakfast in a little cafe round the corner with vouchers as our hostal doesn’t do breakfast itself. Had OJ (always fresh), coffee, pastry 🥐…then we went ambling along in the beautiful cool morning air - just long sleeve T-shirt cool, not cold. Our wandering too us past churches we had found before but were closed, but morning seems to be open time and we went inside san Bartolomé, and Santa Maria del Palacio …Then we set off walking along the river in the other direction from yesterday…the ground is covered with what looks like white dust balls which is being dropped from the white poplars which are everywhere…very pretty trees…so we ended back in the main square, and decided to climb the cathedral tower! Such fun, and such a fabulous view from the top, along with the bells…Next we had coffee/ColaCao/tea before we split - R&R went to the Rioja museum (where Amr and I went last time) and I wandered round looking for a plaza which I remembered but couldn’t find!

We met back at 2 and had lunch - at an Irish Pub!! But they had food offerings we felt like! I had a Caesar salad and luckily saw that you could order a small size…Rachel ordered a salad which came as full size…both of us did well - Rach finished hers! And I only left some of the fried chicken which had come very generously with it…

So now we have all split to do our individual things…mine was to come to the room and relax over word games, write this bit and I’m about to set off for a walk till we meet…

Now 8.30pm and Rachel and Richard are at mass, and I’m trying to add more, and put in points that R&R have reminded me! One was to mention that there was a stork with a nest on our tower flying round very close. Another was that I bought a pair of sunnies for €6 (polarised!) as can’t find mine…this will be a sign that I will now find them…but the sun is rather penetrating and bright in the afternoons. Another thing was that there was a circle watching some Tai Chi sort of dancing, that went on for ages…but now the square is full of children running and playing ball, endless groups of men, girls etc, all with matching t-shirts, or colour coded…hen parties, stag parties, who knows what…but Saturday in Logroño is throbbing!

We met after mass in the beautiful cathedral, with singing and powerful organ playing - I popped in and saw the end. So it was about 9 and we went to an empanada shop we’d seen and all ordered 2, they were small with lovely light thin pastry, and delicious and generous fillings! Yum…followed by an ice cream at the Italian gelateria…we ate sitting on a bench in the square, so that we could do more people watching…a lovely relaxing day.

Also nice that being relaxed meant I was able to chat to both Cathy and Paul and not be in the middle of walking…tomorrow is not a long walk, about 14 kms I think, to Navarrete. And the tally for our ambling was 8.29 kms and 13,151 steps…Baca lagi