The home of the bulls!

Pamplona – A 15.2km walk…a little longer than anticipated as I got a bit lost getting to my hotel, and being a Saturday….the bars are bursting at the seams…

But let’s go back to the beginning of the day!

I woke to a misty morning – the view from my window…breakfast was at 8am as today was a “short” day of walking…

Had a great dinner at the hotel Akerreta last night with Camino friends Betsy and Bob from Florida! Maybe too many of these…

A 6.5% local beer, tasted great at the time….but I was certainly ready for my freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee at breakfast… I tootled off around 8.30am…and ran into a couple of young chaps I had met on my first day over the mountain….as they roared off into the distance, I picked my way carefully down the hills – trying to take care of my knees!!

Past Wild flowers in the paddocks…

Following the river on still very soggy tracks…but not much rain, just the slight drizzle here and there!

A few raging rapids and river still really high…it was really nice to walk with the sound of the water rushing down beside me.

About an hour in, I crossed to the other side and got a fellow walker to catch me in action! Yes I am actually here somewhere in Spain!

A cool cafe on the side of this bridge, but a little early for my 2nd cup of coffee (as toilets are few and far between)

A little roadside walking before heading back off grid through small villages…

Following the yellow arrows and blue and yellow scallop signs…

Bridges crisscrossing roads and rivers…

The first leg to Zabaldika complete, I then had a gentle descent back towards the river

And walked between the wheat fields and the river.. this was turning into a very pleasant day!

Then as I got nearer to Pamplona…the trail sent me up high….

I’m guessing to get my first glimpse of Pamplona…. I knew what this meant however…if you go up you must come down…and down is what my knees don’t like!

However before the final descent into the city, I spied this little ginger squirrel munching on a nut…a couple of loud French ladies appeared around the corner as I was trying to catch him in action, so I put my finger to my lips and pointed to the little guy…they stopped talking for long enough to take a photo then marched off and turned the volume up again!

I crossed the old stone bridge into the edge of town…

This was the beginning of city walking… having just come down from the hills and realised that final steep, long descent had got my right knee again..

However, I was still 3 kms from my destination and carried on straight through Pamplona new town…followed by what seemed to be a large area of construction sites and paddocks…at this point I met up with a chap from Texas (Dallas) called Ron and we both took a shortcut heading to our respective accommodations… thinking we were very clever and we weren’t, we ended up doubling back to the original route and the only bridge to cross another river into the old town…here we parted ways…as we do on this journey…me to the left, him to the right!

I climbed up another hill, uphill is good – never thought I would say that!!!

With the walls of the old city opening up to the bustling streets of Saturday young people all queueing for drinks and having fun…I found my hotel in the middle of all this madness and had an hour to kill before I could get into my room…I had to get off my feet and found a bakery

And a nice hot cappuccino- as it was now drizzling again and the temperature was barely double digits!

I had a quick look at the main square, devoid of people not wanting to get wet…

However the alleyways and covered terraces were heaving!

A bit much turmoil after my day in nature to be honest! So as soon as I could check in I retired to my room – took a hot bath and hand washed a few bits….the old rolling in a towel, then my new trick of drying with the hairdryer…all my hotels here seem to have hairdryers – which I don’t use on my hair but are great for clothes and wet shoes!!!

I will need to venture out soon as I am hungry! But would like to get a take out and come back to rest my knees in hope that I can do the 24km walk tomorrow!!