Day 10, Navarette to Najera

We left last night’s rather splendid posada around 7.30 and began the day with coffee at a bar in Navarette where we met an Australian woman who was catching the bus to Santo Domingo in the hope of resting an injury. Leaving town, we bumped into the lovely Australian father and son we met on our first night. David and Noah were also both injured, were aiming for the same bus and seemed pretty low about it.
I recognised the two little blisters which have developed on my left heel were pretty trivial in the scheme of things but this didn’t stop me worrying about them! Luckily we weren’t doing big mileage today.
We were happily distracted for the first 6km by conversation with an American couple who set off at the same time as us. They told us they were on a 5 month mid-life break. They had taken a cruise to Europe and were planning a long trip to Paris afterwards to revisit Disneyland Paris which they loved but also, for the first time, to see the city itself and visit some museums. They were then taking a Disney cruise to see other European capitals. I was quietly assuming I had their measure when they revealed they were professional clowns who had spent 19 years living in a camper van as part of a circus.
This I hadn’t expected. I decided their Disney obsession was professionally motivated and recalibrated my thinking.
We are now in the Rioja region and, unsurprisingly, we are surrounded by vineyards. I was also taken by an odd beehive building commemorating a battle between the knight Roldan on his way to Santiago and a Syrian giant. It reminded me of the Gallarus Oratory in Kerry.
Our destination today was Najera where we visited a monastery that was originally founded in the 11th century and full of treasures. Like most of the major churches we’ve seen (often in minor places) everything was on a massive scale and the altar full of baroque gold.
Dinner wasn’t great but we met Janice and Sheryl and had an extra plate of chips at their restaurant before setting off for bed.Læs mere