Today I was back on the road again, we set off just before 8am, bit later than we had planned but being a Saturday breakfast did not start until 7.30am.
Today was a 24km walk, and I joined Eric and Andy having met them at breakfast. We agreed to add an additional 3km detour to visit a chapel which had been mentioned last night.
We set off, the first 5km is through the outskirts of Pamplona, which is not terribly attractive. On leaving Pamplona we then head to the open fields outside Pamplona with the wind turbines on the horizon.
We passed through villages to the Church of San Andres at Zariquiegui, anyone recognise this from The Way? It was a pretty church and a good break before the climb started up to Alto de Perdon at 790m.
The climb was totally worth it for one of the iconic images of The Way. The wrought iron representation of Pilgrims with the inscription of: where the way of the wind crosses the way of the stars. This is an amazing viewpoint, up on the hill with the wind turbines and the statue.
We then headed down a very steep and stoney path, requiring proper concentration. I do not want to end up on my backside again, especially since I am just starting to feel better! We had agreed that we would not really stop today but would push in through, however we were adding the detour to the Romanesque Church of Santa Maria de Eunate as a break.
The church is literally in the middle of nowhere. It has been linked with the Knights Templar and has an octagonal form. We arrived along with a coach load of Germans to find a Spanish wedding in full flow, complete with music and two camera drones. Since we could not get into the Church we rested on some benches nearby and pulled out our nut rations! Eric then produced out two small bottles of red wine, he had mentioned these earlier but I had assumed he was joking, he clearly wasn’t. Then being an engineer he fashioned two wine glasses from an empty water bottle and we rested enjoying a couple of glasses of red wine, before the wedding party moved outside for photos and we could pop inside.
Church visit over we carried on passing a number of really full allotments, pepper fields and fruit trees, we sampled some amazing time yellow plums that we brilliantly sweet, hopefully theses were supposed to be edible!!
Around 3pm we arrived at Puente La Reina. We are staying in different places tonight but my place was first so the guys dropped me off stopping for a beer before heading on to their spot.
They have reviewed all the local options for dinner so I will head up the road around 7pm to join them. Now to the shower, it has been a very hot day at 30 degrees and to my delight I have a bath in my room.