Navarrete to Alesanco

Today was another early start about an hour and a half before dawn, after breakfasting on some things we bought in the supermarket.

8km of walking found us in Ventosa where we found much needed coffee and croissants.

Today was cloudy so we were spared the hot sun after noon.

Another 8km found us in Nájera where we stopped for lunch.

So far we’d been walking almost entirely through vineyards, some of them very large, extending over the horizon. We noticed the older vines are very sturdy and self supporting.

From Nájera it was a somewhat unpleasant 8km trudge on bitumen roads to our pensión in Alesanco. It is slightly off the Camino but it had a room available for us.

We walked to the pub in the center of town and drank a couple of radlers (beer with lemon, like a shandy) at an outside table and watched the passing parade. It is a very rural town and there was a constant parade of tractors pulling big bins of just-harvested grapes to one of the town’s wine makers.

Right on 7pm it seemed as though all the townspeople descended on the pub to chat, play cards, have a drink or a snack. We couldn’t find a restaurant open so made dinner with the pub snacks, called pinchos.

Back at our pensión we met a young German couple with 12 month old child who are cycling the Camino with a tow-along baby carriage. They had started from their home in Leipzig. They told us they had previously ridden from Perth to Melbourne in Australia.Read more