Day 8: Logroño ro Najera

Day 8: 13 Oct 2024

Distance (kms): 29.6

Elevation gain / loss (m): 479 / 366

The day before, Sunday the 12th of October was a rest day in Logroño. I stayed the night of 11th and 12th in a small private room overlooking the Camino. As it turned out, 12th of October is the National Day in Spain and I had been warned that almost all places - restaurants, cafes, stores - would be closed. So I had to go grocery shopping, for the first time, the night of 11th to stock up on dry goods: fruits, bread, cheese, sausage etc. But as it turned out, there were a few cafes open and I did get to drink hot coffee. It rained all day on the 12th and all my plans to explore Logroño came to nothing. I was very glad that I did not have to walk all day in the rain.

Started walking on 13th under gray, wet skies. The path out of the city was routed through a nature preserve with a large lake stock with fish.

 

Near Navarrete, there are ruins of an old medieval pilgrim hospital. At that is left of it now is the foundation.

And a reminder to "inhale the future, exhale the past, and to always breathe in the present" at the ‎⁨Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Asunción⁩, ⁨in Navarrete.

⁩Lots of vineyards on the way out of Navarrete. I imagine all of these go into the amazing the 'La Rioja' red wines.

Leaving Navarrete, the path climb to a high point (670m) called the Alto de San Anton. Several minutes after reaching this height I realized that there were very few people on the Camino. It took me a while to realize that I was lost. But thanks to the excellent maps in the 'Wise Pilgrim' app, I was able to walk for about 30 minutes on an unmarked dirt path and get back on the Camino. I thought it was funny that I got lost right after reaching a place named after St. Anthony. I guess it was a reminder to pray to St. Anthony for lost items, including losing your way on The Way!

After Alto de San Anton, the Camino goes past a town called Ventosa. Since going into Ventosa was a 2 kms detour, I skipped that town and keep walking. 

After another 10 kms of walking, came across this beautiful poem written on a wall on the outskirts of Najera:

Poem of the Way

Dust, mud, sun and rain,
it is the Way of St. James
Thousands of pilgrims,
and more than a thousand years

Pilgrim, who is calling you?
What hidden force attracts you?
Neither the field of stars
nor the Great Cathedrals

It is not the bravery of Navarre
nor the wine of the Riojans
nor the Galician seafood
not the Castilian fields

Pilgrim, who is calling you!
What hidden force attracts you?
Neither the people of the Way,
nor the rural customs.

It is not history and culture,
nor the rooster of the Calzada,
nor the palace of Gaudí
nor the Ponferrada castle

I see everything as I pass by
and it is a joy to see it all
but the voice that calls me
I feel it much deeper

The force that pushes me,
the force that attracts me,
is not for me to explain,
only He Above knows!

What can I say? This graffiti more than compensated for marring that wall. I stayed in an Albergue on the other side of this bridge over Rio Najerillo:

I stayed in a room with a young American traveling after graduating from college, an Irishman on his vacation and someone else I never got to see. I never got to see the last person, because (I was told this the next day) that the Irish man snored so loudly that the fourth person decided to move out of the room and sleep outside the showers and the American decided to sleep on the couch in the reception. Here I was worried that my snoring would keep people up!

Had a tomato salad and a ham, egg and cheese sandwich for dinner. For some reason the whole restaurant was bathed in neon blue light.