Driving across northern Spain

We started the phase 2 of our trip resting and recovering from the blister and muscle that we didn’t know we had. Going downhill is draining and for the most part, El Camino downhill sections are rocky, with sharp incline and very long.

La Ciudadela in Pamplona is very charming and beautiful. It seems to me that people are running on a slower clock and it takes a few days to adjust to that lifestyle.

A lesson learn is to make sure you are flexible with your schedule at least when vacationing in Spain during the month of august. For the most part the entire European Union is on vacation during this time. For us, we lost a day due to no train availability to move a cross northern Spain. I had to spent $50 on an expedited international driver license so we could rent a car. There were no cars available on Sunday other than a cargo van.

So we ventured on a Toyota cargo van. 75€ in diesel and rolled out of Pamplona around 11:30am. On our first stop we immediately realized we didn’t know how to engage the van in reverse. So, while I drove Nick was watching YouTube videos until we figured it out. While that was going on, we made a couple of stops. People were looking at us pushing the van in reverse to get out the parking spot. Yeah, that was a headache.

By the time we reached Leon around 2:30pm we had already figured how to put the van in the reverse gear. We had pizza for lunch, walked around town and had visited the cathedral in the city center. We then continued to Sarria since the Lugo’s car rental office would be closed.

It was a bit challenging with a manual transmission cargo van with limited side vision when going in reverse. In these small towns, do not trust google maps that’s all I would say. Once we found our hotel, we had a delicious dinner and chilled. Sarria is the most popular starting point of El Camino Frances journey. From here, you can reach Santiago de Compostela in 6-7 days and meet the minimum distance required to obtain your Compostela certificate. We had made reservations for one day and needed to extend for another day. Our current hotel was booked, so we were forced to search and move to another hotel.Baca lagi