Euro5: Pamplona to Viana

 So to recap:

21st to Roncevaux, ~27km

I began the trek on the 20th of march, the first pilgrim I met was on the train to St-Jean-Pied-do-Port, Megan from america who had sone the Camino once before. This day I climbed the Pyrenees, drank snow melt and finished the day compleetly exhausted. I beleive that this is the hardest day of walking. Stayed in possibbly the nicest and most official albergue of the whole trip and had my first pilgrims menue.

22nd to Larrasoaña, ~25km

Next day I was planning to have a rest day on sunday but then that seemed like a bad idea and a lot of people wanted to stop in Pamplona, so they finished in Zubri. but 12 of us wanted to go a bit further than halfway and a good thing nobody else did because the albergue only had 12 beds. This was my first share dinner, and it started off with a $1.50 bottle of local wine, which tasted so nice I may have paid ~$30 for at home. This is where I got to know Luca and Kirsten? (Green girl who walked the Appalachian mountains and works ar a park ranger)

23rd to Pamplona, ~16km

Was planning to meet Alex and Joe Herman here as we three planned to say a day. But I ended up in a quiet ans small Albergue with very friendly hosts and not many pilgrims, Paderborn I beleive it was called. this is the evening where we has a lot of mussles.

24th in Pamplona, ~15km

Walked all over the old city, saw it shut, in the rain, in the sun and rarely even when it was open. Tried out a lot of different tappas/Pinchos bars. I think these were a great idea, lots of the pubs had nice snack food. Then when they were resteraunts as well if you ordered a coffe you get free cake and when you order alcohol you get a small ample of the cooking. I used this as an indication for the rest of the trip to weather or not we would stay in the pub for dinner or move onto the next one. In the evening Alex and I went to a Yoga session, I think I did quite well since I knew no spannish and had never done yoga before. I also nearly bought a tophat here, but the shopkeeper was grumpy.

25th to Puente la Reina, ~30km

Left Joe behind as he was waiting for another friend to arrive in town. Took a detour to see some church that was supposed to be amazing but was closed and very anticlimactic. In the evening we met Callum the first Irishman again though he never found the pub with Guinnis.

26th to Villamayor de Monjardin, ~31km

Walked with Alex untill Estella, but I wanted to go further to finish the treck before easter so that I could catch up with Aurore again and maybe see Eduard in Belgium. At this stage I had no idea howmany friends I would have made by the time I got to Santiago and waw worried that I would spend all of easter missing family. I also really wanted to have a picnic at the free wine fountain. But picnicks are less fun when you are the only person there. in the evening I caught up with Luca again who had been walking fast but not far due to his extra sightseeing. Joined in with a share dinner of pasta which the 4 itallians let the 2 spannich cook.

27th to Viana, ~33km

Notice the kilometers are only a round of about. I dont really trust any of the signs I met along the way and every so often lost the path and doubbled back as well. I cant actually think of anything that happened this day...

I will probably update this once more to include a scan of the relevant stamps, that will probably jog some more memories.

Spring is nice

Found chese for dinner was quite nice and equal parts goat/sheep/cow chese.

The I am eating strawberries face.

At a pub for breakfast and the free WiFi allowed me to see that Dad asked me what the weather was like, and so there is this photo of the current weather report.

The rather octaganal church of st mary eunate

Alex enjoying the bridge at Peunta La Reina

After farewell Tappas

Playing "spot the yellow arrow" and trying to avoid getting lost because I could not see any other pilgrims.

I was looking for the winery office to get a stamp there, but instead walked into a nice church. Its one of the ones that had been captured by the Moors lots of times. So there were none of the usuall catholic gold ornaments.

Dad likes places that are green and spannish spring is very green.

Some panoramas worked better than others