Much easier day today due to weather being slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. Not to say 34km is nothing, but yes, much easier than yesterday. Tomorrow promises to be even more like home, cold and wet. So we should be flying. Which might help, because we want to get to a parish donativo in Tosantos rather quickly, and it’s another 33km.
Starting to miss albergues a little: it’s been a couple of nights in private rooms, to be able to relax a bit more. But these are rather faceless places – it’s nice to have your own bathroom, but it’s not bathrooms you remember, usually. Although.. No-no, not bathrooms.
Passed a couple of remarkable places today. In Nájera it’s the last day of the two weeks of St. Peter’s celebration.
The whole town is out burning large piles of branches to make coal for their grills and grill some meat over those. The whole place smells of shish-kebab. You get hungry for shish-kebab when you can smell shish-kebab, but no-one was in a hurry to invite poor pilgrims to their picnics… not judging, but, you know. Nájera is a decent place with a decently sized old monastery.
But word of the day is grapevine, we’re in Rioja after all. It is everywhere. Like, every available piece of very unwelcoming- looking land (I think it’s pretty much red clay, although I’m no gardener) would have very tidy grapevines growing on it.
The world’s center, Cirueña, has us for the night (I wonder if it’s the lucky part, actually).
Long day tomorrow, alarm clock is set on five, I’m checking out.
