Peter and Cathie's 2022 Camino

A pretty quiet day today. Much of the trail follows a major highway and just kept stretching out before us. Goodbye to the cathedral at Santo Domingo de la Calzada. We started the day slightly later than we would have liked. Breakfast was on offer at our strangely-named Room Concept hotel at 7.30am and since the day was only 22km we sat about and chatted, leaving at 8am. The long landscapes were nice, but there were few villages.  The service was excellent. We had plenty of sustenance onboard after overdosing at breakfast, so we skipped the first couple of villages, stopping for coffee at Redecilla del Camino, after 10km. We were clocking up a good speed, with a kilometre every 13 minutes or so. For a long stretch there was highway construction going on, so a lot of dust. The sky was mostly clear, there wasn't much wind and shade was close to non-existent, but we were wary of overdoing the walking and decided we were going to stop for lunch soon after noon. There was only one possi...

The long and winding road Today was a deceiving little devil. After 30km yesterday, the 20.9km showed on our plan seemed a breeze. Little did we know that by the end of the day we would have clocked up more than 23km. Not only that, but the predicted cloud never arrived, there was no shade and it was hot. The red cliffs at the outskirts of Najera. We started out walking past the imposing cliffs that fringe the town of Najera. Straightaway the road tilted up. We were feeling pretty good. Every night we feel twinges from our old bodies and wake up hobbling and stooped, but every day we get fitter and stronger. We'd waited for breakfast at 7.30am at the Hostal Hispano and it was worth the wait - coffee, fresh orange juice, toast, croissant, cheese, ham and all the jam-like things your heart desired. I couldn't manage it all so stuffed the croissant with a pile of ham and cheese and saved it for Ron (Later Ron). In fact, let the record state that we loved the Hostal Hispano, includ...

Offering a helping hand to the potter in Navarette. Sunday May 29. Today was the longest day on the Camino so far, measured purely in kilometres covered, but it wasn't the hardest - days one and two were much more difficult. The best estimate of the distance ahead was 29km, so we prepared accordingly. Last night, we took our breakfast vouchers over to the friendly Cafe Calenda and they give us a couple of their excellent boccadillo and two bottles of water. They wanted us to have our breakfast coffee there and then, but as it was 6pm we decided against that. We went to the supermarket and for dinner got some pre-packed salad, beer and wine to give us strength and headed off to bed early, with alarm set for 5am. There was a bit of commotion in the street below, as police put up blockades to keep out traffic. We were in the middle of the restaurant district and it was Saturday night, so we thought nothing of it. Little did we know that Real Madrid was about to play Liverpool in the C...

Not too much to say about today.  We were grateful to receive the blessing of a day off. We've been walking for seven days, which included three of the hardest days on the route. Cathie's blister had reached crisis point and I was starting to feel like a decrepit 60-year-old. After out early dinner in the solitude of our hotel room, we crashed before 9pm. At 9am this morning I had to give Cathie a poke to wake her up. You could say we slept the sleep of the virtuous - and so we are. It's a pilgrimage after all. Just in case you misunderstand, we don't take the high moral ground of a few religious pilgrims, who tend to scoff at the non-believers and tut tut about the trail being taken over by non-believers. This is some sort of proving ground for everyone, regardless of their beliefs and if I can speak on behalf of non-believers, it behoves everyone to be entirely tolerant to every form of pilgrimage. Even if you're not religious, you're going to suffer along wit...

The day stretches out ahead of us It was a long day. Today we walked for eight hours, covering nearly 30km at an average speed of 3.6km/h, which seems to be our gold standard. Of course, we didn't walk non-stop, but we only had two significant breaks each of 15-20 minutes. We would have had more. We'd counseled ourselves to take all possible breaks and to eat and drink whenever we got a chance. On the road today, there just weren't any chances. We knew we had a long day ahead and we knew it was going to be hot. A few minutes ago we went outside for the critical mission of buying cold beer. It's 4pm and you could fry an egg on the pavement. The street of Los Arcos as we set off for the day. The strategy was to start early. Our hotel in Los Arcos was offering breakfast at 7.30am and that just wasn't going to work. We set the alarm for 5am and were on the road by 5.35am. Of course it was still dark and there was nowhere open for us to get a coffee, so we set of for the...

Clouds over the cliffs to the north as we leave Estella Here we are in Los Arcos. Thanks to the 6.30am breakfast we were able to get away before 7am and made excellent time for the first two hours, stopping only for some bread, ham, cheese and bananas to sustain us as the morning went on  Home of the famous wine fountain Our next stop was the compulsory one at the Irach wine fountain, where I secured a little supply for later in the day. Shortly after, we were faced with the first major decision of the day, whether to take the regular path, or choose the alternative scenic route.  The profile of the scenic route looked a little more gentle, but we were unsure of what the surfaces would be like. Cathie's knees don't allow for easy descending on irregular surfaces and my dodgy hamstring doesn't like going uphill, so we took the conservative choice.  We were really glad we did. On the whole the path was wide and smooth. According to the book, 82 percent of today's stage is...