Today I’m heading to Logroño, which is a 21,3 km walk, on mostly natural paths and dirt tracks through farmland. Here is a view from the Alto de Nuestra Señora del Poyo, looking out over a vineyard. This is still Navarra, but just before Logroño, we’ll enter the region of La Rioja.

Just outside Sansol in Torres del Río, I meet the two Swedish women from yesterday’s dinner, Malin and Maria, and we continue to walk together. It’s always fun to get to know more about the new people I meet along the way. They come from Malmö, a city in southern Sweden opposite Copenhagen, where I myself enjoyed living for over six years.

We stop and rest in Viana and have a late breakfast or early lunch in my case, at the café tucked beside the church Iglesia de Santa Maria. Here in Viana we meet Elin and Rickard, Kristina and also Kristine with her children again, as they are leaving the café when we arrive. I’m glad to see that there often seems to be a pilgrim ready to give her a helping hand or two along the way.

This what it can feel like to hike for long days, when the surroundings aren’t very inspiring. This video is less than a minute. Imagine five, six or seven hours of this non-stop, day in and day out…

It’s quite an uneventful day of pretty much focused hiking, passing mostly vineyards, but it also has it’s fair share of suburbs, factory buildings, and busy roads to cross, and I’m not inspired to take many photos. Closer to Logroño, there is a stretch where we go through a pine forest, which provides a nice coolness, because even if it’s not hot, it’s warm enough for me to feel it. I say goodbye to Malin and Maria, because it’s starting to feel hard now and I need to rest for a while. It usually takes about a week or so for the body to adapt to walking longer stretches with a backpack every day, and I’m not quite there yet.

Just before entering Logroño, I pass a lady sitting outside this house, and I get a stamp in my Camino passport from her. She tells me that this is her great-grandmother’s house.

Logroño is a large university city and the capital of La Rioja. I have a private room here, and I head straight there as soon as I arrive and have a much needed siesta. Later in the evening I head out in search of a place to have dinner. Being in a big city has the advantage of having a greater variety of restaurants, something I am not slow to take advantage of. I’m one happy customer when I discover an Asian fast food restaurant not far from my hostel, where I enjoy tempura and a cold Asian beer. As much as I like the Spanish food so far, a little variety doesn’t hurt.

Tomorrow I’m walking to Ventosa, a small village, and I’m looking forward to being in the countryside again.

Check out my earlier posts to get the full context of this pilgrimage and the one I did the year before, and sign up to be notified when the next post is released.

All photos copyright Anita Martinez Beijer © All rights reserved