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- Day 4–8
- Jun 13, 2025, 10:35pm
- ⛅ 73 °F
- Altitude: 444 m
SpainEstella-Lizarra42°40’21” N 2°1’54” W
Luck Be a Pilgrim
1 hour ago in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 73 °F
Happy Friday the 13th! It was another bright, hot day when we left Puente de la Reina over its namesake bridge. The terrain was textbook Camino: Golden wheat fields, dirt paths, and rolling hills.
For reasons I can't explain, we both thought today's terrain would be flat. It was not. The path up to Mañeru, the first town after Puente de la Reina, was a nearly wall-like incline straight up. It was a brutal way to start my morning, but Mañeru made amends by featuring the cleverest "Pilgrim's welcome" at its town entrance. Not only did the little park offer seating and a water fountain, but the fountain was a repurposed 16th century sculpture that was plumbed for fresh water. I do luvs me some engineering ingenuity.
We walked through picturesque Camino scenery for the next few hours, en route to the medieval hilltop town of Cirauqui. This section of the Camino, with the rolling path and Cirauqui in the distance, is apparently one of the most-photographed scenes of the entire Camino. I of course took the required photo.
We stopped at the entrance to Cirauqui for coffee, and despite being told it was a movie-set-worthy beautiful village, it seemed a bit ordinary. So after our break, we continued on...and the Camino led us INTO Cirauqui, a stunning medieval town situated on stone staircases. Had we just walked five minutes past the café, we would have seen this. Oops. But the exit from Cirauqui was equally as impressive- the staircase out of town was built in Roman times, with views over the valley.
Around noon, we were both out of water and getting a bit hangry, and poof, the Camino provided. We walked past an unstaffed table offering free water, bread and cheese, nuts, and crackers to pilgrims. We were joined by a lone French pilgrim, and marveled on the generosity of the Camino community while I scarfed free peanuts. And at 1pm, we finally arrived at the tiny town of Lorca. But instead of eating lunch at their lone (and iffy) bar, we bought ice creams and bananas from a shop, and had a picnic in the town square. We were soon joined by our French pilgrim (whose name is Alán) who shared his apricots with us, and together with our shared Heineken beers, it was a perfect lunch.
Later in the afternoon, we reached Villatuerta, where we escaped the heat with an aperitivo in the park, before continuing on to Estella, our stopping point for the night.
I was a bit surprised by Estella. It was built in 1090 just for pilgrims, by order of the King. But I was not expecting the magnitude of medieval architecture- it is known as the "Toledo of the North" (Toledo, SPAIN!) because of its huge array of historical, medieval, and gorgeous churches. Saint Pedro de la Rúa, situated up a picturesque staircase, is the most famous. But we spent the early evening visiting the stunning 12th-century Saint Miguel, with vistas over the city; the Palace of the Kings of Navarre, now a museum; the Temple of the Holy Sepulchre, an odd, square fortress on the river; and the Iglesia de Santa Maria Jus del Castillo, a church built literally over a Jewish synagogue. I was not expecting a town so steeped in Camino history, but also so beautiful.
We had a late dinner at a pilgrim's restaurant in the Old City, then our exhausted selves had a very early bedtime.Read more
