Day 9 - Viana to Navarette

On the road by 0640. We had 11 km to walk to Logrono. It was a nice walk, fairly flat to Logrono. On the way we saw a

Nice view of the old ruined church overlooking the valley, which was filled with vineyards - Rioja Country!

The country has changed as we move down from the Pyrenees. In France it was all beech trees. As we moved into Spain, we had a mix of beech, pine, moving to Holm Oak. We also had almond, walnut trees, olive trees and we are now seeing fig trees.

But Rioja is serious wine country.

We stopped in Legrono for coffee and croissants. The walk into Legrono was very nice. We passed the tourist office, just opening and the guide dragged us in, stamped our Pilgrim passports, gave us useful documents in English, all the while speaking Spanish at a million miles an hour. Great guy, so I took his photo, for which he said 'Gracias'!

We saw a stork nest up on electricity pylons

We also saw a special Camino rose

Local graffiti was interesting but the walk through Legrono was a bit dull.

We ran into Eran at the coffee shop, which was great, as we thought we'd lost him, when he pushed on to Legrono.

He is taking a train further along the Camino today after buying new, non blistering walking shoes!

The walk out of town was through a large Country park, which seemed packed with people out walking. But not many Pilgrims!

What every blog post needs - John Wayne, probably from The Quiet Man.

And this is Rioja country

As far as I could see, these were all Riojas.

And this was a red squirrel with a blackish tail, that followed me for a while, begging for food.

The walk to Navarette was uphill and hot. We had to take a walk through what looked like new roads going into Navarette. Luckily they were unused and fairly direct but uphill.

We arrived, found the nearest bar, no new beers so back to Ambar and great tortilla. Then Paul and Rose joined us and I learned about 'exercise induced vasculitis' which looks like this

And I've got it. According to various websites, there is know known cure and it resolves within 10 days. But Paul says you can use hemmerhoid cream on it and it disappears. I'm not that desperate yet!