Viana to Navarrete

Our destination for today was 14 miles (22 km) away with the rather large city of Logroño at the midpoint.

 We left well before dawn at 6:40am and it was dark and cool at 10C. The track to Logroño was through farmland, much of it vineyards.

Arrived at Logroño after 3 hours walk and the town was cleaning up after a week long wine festival. We found a good cafe in the centre and enjoyed coffee and a bite to eat.

The walk out of the city was very pleasant on a sealed path several kilometers long and often well shaded. It took us to a water reservoir where we aired the feet for a while.

Then it was up and over a hill covered in various grape varieties and on into Navarrete, a town on a hill about the size of Viana.

We checked into our room at the Albergue de Cântaro. It is very nice indeed and lives up to its excellent reviews.

Sometime today we walked our 100th mile. Satisfactory progress and fingers crossed.

We attended 8pm Mass at the beautiful church of the Assumption. See John’s photo in the lit church. At the end the priest called all pilgrims forward for a blessing. Then he and the locals sang a hymn of blessing over us. It was a kind and generous act of hospitality from the locals, whose town is constantly invaded by itinerants like us. Finally the priest spoke to each pilgrim, asking where we were from and exchanging a few words.

On the way back to our albergue we had a very good meal at El Figón del Duque on the recommendation of fellow pilgrim Chris from Utah. It included an excellent local wine made from Tempranillo grapes, fermented in clay, served slightly chilled.Read more