- Italo Calvino
A day of big changes. This morning I accompanied my walking buddy Mariella to Pamplona bus station. We have walked all across France together, as well as the Camino Aragones this past week, and she has been great company. But she has already walked the Camino Frances and so she is leaving me here. I am continuing on with Marius, and we are the last two remaining from our company of four who met in France three weeks ago, just after Toulouse.
But here we will not be alone. There are pilgrims everywhere! We are constantly overtaking them along the trail - most of them started in St. Jean Pied du Port, only four or five days ago, so they are not as accustomed to walking as we are, having been on the trail for several weeks already. In order to avoid the crowds, or at least avoid competing with them for beds in the pilgrim hostels, we will try to break up the stages of the trail in different halting-places from the standard ones. Today we walked an extra five kilometres beyond the conventional end of the stage, Pamplona to Puente la Reina, to stay in a beautifully renovated hostel in a historic building in Mañeru. Well actually the whole of today's walk was a sort of bonus hike, as we went back one stage on the Camino Frances by bus yesterday in order to see Pamplona.
We set off late, after I accompanied Mariella to the bus station and Marius went to the post office to ship home some excess items and unnecessary weight. We climbed slowly up toward Alto del Perdon, one of the best-known landmarks on the Camino Frances.
From here a steep, rocky descent took us down into some rolling hills and wheatfields that reminded me once again of the clay hills of Tuscany south of Siena.
When we reached Obanos and then Puente la Reina, we had completed the "bonus hike" and were back where we had first joined the Caminon Frances from the Aragones.
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| Obanos |
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| Obanos |
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| Obanos |
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| Puente la Reina |
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| Puente la Reina |
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| Puente la Reina |
This time we actually crossed the famous bridge, left the city and the flow of pilgrims behind and continued on for another hour, ending in a steep climb, to the pretty village of Mañeru and our hostel for the evening.
Pamplona - Mañeru 27 km
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