19th of August our hostel offered no breakfast and luckily Robert had found online a cafeteria on the way out of Logronño which offered porridge for breakfast. We were hungry and took even two portions and it helped to calm my tummy trouble. Very helpful when you want to be back on the road again biking. We left the city on well separated bike-lanes in the busy rush hour of the city and reached a beautiful park where all the Logroñians enjoyed their morning walk all the way up to an artificial water reservoir called Embalse de la Grajeira.
We had to pass some highway crossings to reach Navarrete up on a hill slope. This little town was preparing a fiesta and the Paella pans were already stacked on the plaza in front of the church, which inside has a golden baroque altar with sculptures of Saint Roch and Jesus taken of the cross in a glass coffin.
We had our ups and downs through red soil hills with vineyards until we rolled down to the river of Najerilla which had cut its riverbed into steep red sandstone cliffs. The perfect landmark to establish the monastery of Santa María la Real and the city of Nájera around it.
It was already 2 o’clock in the afternoon and we started to get hungry and chose El Trinquete as our restaurant where we were the first guests. But being in Spain that changed quickly. The eating habits in this country are completely different to what we were used from in France. Arriving after 2:00 o’clock would have been risky there to still find a kitchen serving us food. Not in Spain – here the people started to come until 3:00 o’clock to fill the place full with families.
What we didn’t realize was the fact that this is somehow official siesta time and concerns also opening times of museums. So we were unfortunate not to be able to see the museum of the monastery and kept on going. We had to climb the red sand cliffs through a beautiful smelling pine tree forest to be back in a wide hilly landscape with golden fields of harvested crops and bales of straw. In between there were sunflower fields where pilgrims had been making smileys by picking the seeds out of the petals.
What looked funny at the first moment must make farmers mad at pilgrims.
There was just a young man from England called Sim going by and he also stopped to take photos as it made us smile. We had a short talk about the way we travelled and he told me that reserving the ferry back to England needed to be done quite in advance as it is very booked ahead.
By the time we had chatted Robert was already very far ahead and I had to catch up on him. That was new to me, because usually he is mostly behind me not to lose me when I am taking photos. On top of that I am the navigator having the paper maps plus the komoot and Garmin for better orientation. But most of the time on the Camino Frances you just follow the yellow shell on blue ground or the yellow arrow which is painted at every corner. The other orientation is just pilgrims along the way to the horizon who always say “Buen camino” to each other. It gives you this common feeling of being part of something which you share. But it’s not only the pilgrims among each other. Every village we were passing through people along the way wish us “Buen camino” or families in their car see us with our bikes and they honk and scream “Buen camino” out of their car or truck drivers from their cockpit high above the road. When the trail was going right by the Alta Rioja golf club it seemed like it was not fashionable for the golfers to greet the “poor” pilgrims from their golf caddy. But passing through an artificial urbanization with pools and greens just for the Campo de Golf in the middle of a dry golden landscape caused maybe these poor golfers to feel more alien than the pilgrims who were walking in the dry dust.
When we arrived in Santo Domingo de la Calzada Robert said that his back tire felt a bit weak and soft. The young man who was running the little hostel where we stayed was so nice to give us a helpful tip where to find the next bike shop, which was just around the corner and where I could find a good bike pump. Our little pump is sufficient just for an emergency, but not for the pressure it needs with our luggage. And if you see us unload the bikes we easily fill an elevator.
After I had pumped up the bike we went to the museum and had a look at the history of this town, because the name is given due to Saint Domingo who had the vision of leading the Camino through this place. Therefore, he collected during his lifetime stones to build a bridge and expand the way (the “Camino”), which means also “Calzada”. His grave is a church treasure beside a stable with living chickens which relates to the story of another miracle, where chickens jumped of the plate alive saving the life of a young man who was unjustly hanged but survived after the judge was joking that this would be impossible like the chicken being alive which he was just eating. But they ran of his plate and were alive.
It was finally for us the time to have something to eat which was in the hostal El molino de Floren which was run by the same family as the hostel where we stayed at. By coincidence we met Peter from the Netherlands who is also biking and started in Baarle-Nassau. It was our first encounter with him since Roncesvalles.
It was good that we exchanged the latest during dinner because he had still not heard about the fires, and family and friends were already worried if we were in the middle of this catastrophy, but luckily it was still far away.
