Ron and I left Sydney on Sunday 18th November to start our Camino de Santiago walk in Spain. Our starting point was Logroño about 600kms out from Santiago de Compostela. We have a lot of walking to do in 24 days.
Leaving Sydney and arriving in Lorgroño below.
Everything is quiet this time of the year and there are very few pilgrims to be seen about. Even the albergue we went to to buy our passports was locked up, looked closed with no one around. We went to the information office of Logroño to ask where we could purchase our passports and they informed us that the albergue was in fact open but we had to ring the door bell to get an answer. If only we’d known. Ron and I were only discussing later that we should have knocked or rung the bell rather than walk away in defeat. Knock and you shall receive. That theme came up later in a reading we did together. Anyway, we bought the passport and here it is…
Feeling jet lagged we took advantage of the afternoon and continued to further explore Logroño and have a look around. It’s late autumn and the colours are quite beautiful.
It was back to our hotel for a sleep to recover from our flight from Sydney. I think I went to bed at about 6:30pm and woke up the next day at about 5:30am. What a well needed sleep after that long haul flight! After a couple of Café Americano grande y doble and a small egg and bacon roll we set out for our first days walk from Logroño to Navarrete.
It was raining and chilly but not uncomfortably so. Once we got going in our wet weather gear we warmed up fairly quickly.
It wasn’t long before we started to see Navarrete in the distance. We weren’t doing a long walk on our first day as we wanted to get used to the gear we were carrying and also give our bodies enough time to adjust to the new time zone we are in.
Navarette a beautiful town with a lot of history to it which I won’t go into here. Ron had pre-booked us into this amazing hotel Posada Ignatius which at one point in its history had St Ignatius himself stay on a few occasions.
Our host took us on a tour of the hotel building which had been restored beautifully.
The town also has the most elaborate church. It was once a very wealthy town. The church is dedicated to the assumption of Mary.
The outside doesn’t look like much from the outside but once you stepped inside… wow! Gold leaf everywhere.
Now it’s time to shower and find a place open for dinner. The towns are really quiet now and everything looks closed. Hopefully something will be open. Till tomorrow…
For stats and a map of today’s walk, you’ll find them here.
