Today has been short, 2.5km of forced march from the hotel to the bus station to make sure that we caught the 7:30 to Logrono followed by roughly 14 km to our albergue in Navarette.

We’ve had a lovely walk through a beautiful park/mountain bike playground followed by miles of vineyards mostly on concrete paths (boo, hiss) but still very pleasant. The soil here is very red, iron oxide presumably, the grapes mostly tempranillo – we’re still in the rioja region.

We’ve had the traditional pilgrims’ lunch and have checked into a double room in one of the albergues – lovely setting, lovely room. We’ll relax this afternoon, discuss our timetable for September and generally chill especially now that Bob has been given the all clear 🤗 – the tumour was an interstitial tumour with such a small probability of metastasising that it’s essentially benign. Which means that with the removal of both testicles he should be cured. He’s now 11 and hopefully will be with us for many more years yet 🙋

On the way here today we passed a typical bodega which Dorothy couldn’t resist posing next to.

And here’s an impressive metal image imposing itself on the local landscape.

Buen Camino