We’ve arrived In Logroño – where it is chucking it down. Dorothy had looked on weather.com and had assured me that it would be 30 degrees of glorious sunshine, but apart from a few short hours of sunshine in Bilbao it’s been overcast and we’re now experiencing heavy rain.

But we’re Welsh who much like the Irish but minus the potatoes are used to this. We’ve both brought shorts to walk in and I have a pair of gore-tex trainers which are great stopping water seeping up and through but not quite so good at keeping out water running down. Ah well.

Dorothy on the other hand has non waterproof trainers but waterproof socks so she’ll be fine.

On to the pictures.

The first couple are typical middle of the city scenes.

Followed by scenes outside the Guggenheim. Firstly the famous Jeff Koons ‘puppy’, which I really do like

and then three somethings, which clicked and clacked in unison.

Goodness knows what they’re meant to represent. Boris, Cummings and Gove perhaps?

Here they are in close-up.

One of the pleasures, to me at least, of stopping regularly for coffee and the occasional Spanish croissant are the sparrows that never fail to appear as soon as the chairs are vacated.

When I was a kid in Sandfields 60+ years ago, sparrows were as common as muck, thousands of them it seemed thronged as if their lives depended on it and it now seems that it did. They’ve been annihilated in the years since and the small number we see these days are a paltry remnant of the vast numbers that brightened my childhood.

Or perhaps they all emigrated to Spain. I do hope so.

We ate lunch in what is now our usual haunt, La Olla Jatetxea bar and restaurant on the same side street occupied by the bust of John Adams.

The Spanish have great rail services, great bus services and they certainly know how to build to impress.

All train and bus tickets in Spain have a reservation attached so no nonsense about having to fight one’s way to a seat, with the losers or more usually the kindest standing all the way home. To highlight the contrast with the uk even further, prices are perhaps a fifth or less of those at home. This could set me off on an almighty political rant but what’s the point.

Logroño is a pleasant city and a hive of activity even on an overcast Sunday. After checking in to the hotel and grabbing a quick shower we headed out to find somewhere decent to eat.

We had some raciones in one recommended place but Dorothy’s racione picking ability is severely compromised and whereas asparagus wrapped in Serrano ham is ok, a pastry of pasta with congealed cold egg is not.

We finally ended up getting a really good sea bass with vegetables, actually mostly peppers with two small oyster mushrooms. Full satiated, we walked quickly back through the pouring rain to our quiet room in the Murrieta hotel.

The plan is to leave around 6:30 tomorrow morning, retrace the 12.8km to Navarette where we’ll grab some breakfast in a small café that is open from 6:00 – midnight every day of the week. The chap there does a great bacon and eggs 😊. From there we’ll walk the remaining 17km or so to Najera where we have a small room booked with shared bathroom in a private albergue.

Hope it won’t rain 🤞

Buen Camino