We left not quite as early as we’d have liked, 6:43 instead of 6:30 but we hadn’t reckoned on sunrise being so late, 7:50 this morning. This meant that walking for the first 30 minutes took place in darkness

Thankfully, the first kilometre and a half was along a relatively well lit track through a large park on the outskirts of Logroño.

We passed the occasional jogger and dog walker and half a dozen German lads who found it difficult keeping up with two fit 64 year olds.

We’d walked this way to Navarette on our abortive attempt in July so the first 12 km or so were a pleasant stroll through the earlier memories.

The path meandered through a large natural history reserve and past these rather tame swans and their cygnets.

Shortly after leaving the reserve we climbed gently through fields of grapes. The next image shows Logroño in the far distance covered with what I assume is a pollution haze.

Its disappointing to see. Maybe it’s simply the sort of thing that inevitably results from sitting in a geographical ‘bowl’. I’ve no doubt we’d see the same effect looking back towards Oxford from the Chilterns.

The route took us past a wire fence where over the years hundreds of pilgrims had taken it into their heads to make small crosses from a variety of materials, wooden sticks mainly but also from various forms of plastic.

I’ve no idea why they do this but it’s a very common sight every time the path follows close to a wire fence.

As we came within viewing distance of Navarette there is a famous silhouette of the Logroño bull.

We noticed a duplicate on the train from Bilbao to Logroño on Sunday. The twin was some 10km or so to the north west. Perhaps the burghers of Logroño had a number of these erected around the various routes into the city. Just a supposition, completely unsupported by evidence.

Ah, the power of DuckDuckGo- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_bull.

We’re passing through the heart of the Rioja area with Logroño as it’s capital and the vines are now heavy with grapes.

In 1963 or so my father finally plucked up the courage to return home to Serbia. As a refugee at the end of the war he and those of his compatriots who had fled the war in Yugoslavia were regarded as criminals by Tito and consequently could not return. Those who did promptly disappeared, presumably murdered. Early in the sixties Tito relented and promised free passage to those who had not actually fought against the communists.

My father had been a young lad in the border guard and was consequently free to return so in 1963 we headed over to Belgrade and then south to Kosovo where my aunt and her husband kept Tito’s hunting lodge stocked and available. We stopped off at an uncle’s farm with his few hectares of vineyards and my cousin and I gorged ourselves until we were sick on the grapes.

I couldn’t resist 😊.

They were delicious and some 100 or so grapes later my stomach relived the earlier event. 😟.

As promised yesterday we stopped at Navarette for what was possibly the best ham and eggs on the Camino.

What a great bar. For future reference.

A little outside Navarette we came across this little collection.

We also came across the first pomegranate tree I’ve ever seen. Ive previously assumed that they simply materialise out of the ether in the more esoteric supermarkets.

After a short stop of bocadillo and coffee in Ventosa we re-enacted the photo taken at this point three years ago, the first time we passed this way.

We were buzzed by an eagle

as the path drove relentlessly into the far distance.

We stopped for another short break some 25km from Logroño with only another four of so to go. Time to let my feet out of their prison.

We arrived in Najera around 2:30 having covered a little over 29 km. The albergue is great; we’ve had a hot shower, had all of our washing washed and tumble dried and we’ve had the expensive pilgrim’s menu option (definitely got to write more books now). I’ll finish with some images of Najera.

Buen Camino