What a fabulous day. After our enforced rest day (which we now realise was well earned) we had a good breakfast on the streets of Logrono (another superb city) and hit the road under a cloudless sky and in good humour. Our smiles got broader as we took in the beautiful outskirts of the city calling out 'Buen Camino' to all the walking pilgrims as we passed by. Around 9.45 we were on the Camino just out of the city and rode on the secondary roads for an hour covering 12k's in comfort. At Navarette we joined the walkers route (the Real Camino trail) and followed this for the next 16k's taking just around 2 1/2 hrs then stopping for lunch in Najera at 12.40.
Riding on The Way alongside walkers is just so different from the roads and so interesting. All shapes and sizes from every country in the world all doing the Camino for different reasons. You pass some people who you think could not make it to the next town but they tell you, and you believe them, that they will make it through. And they will, just as we will.
So after a great lunch which we had packed and ate by the side of a river, we set off in great spirits with only 20k's to our destination for the day. We were still on the walkers route which is slower going but a fairly good surface and we continued to enjoy the fabulous country side - an intensive grape growing area. So we get to 10k's from Santo Domingo and The Camino stops us in our tracks. The Way gets rougher and steeper and we have no alternative but to hop off and push the bikes up hill for about a kilometer. Eventually we get to the top of the hill and see rooftops - everyone gives a cheer, including a lovely Bavarian guy who passed us on the way up. (This guy was on his second Camino - the first to get over a broken heart; this one for his soul). Only problem is the rooftops are not in the town we expected but at Cuerina, about 5k's out. This is the weirdest town you will ever see. There's a golf course on the left as you enter the town that is absoulutely pristine. But no-one is playing.Nor is there anybody living in this amazing new development. It is weird and eerie. Apparently someone spent heaps of money on the development just before the GFC and the whole thing went belly up.
Anyway we finally hit the road again and freewheel the next 4 k's into Santo Domingo de la Calzada arriving at 4.30. So it takes us 1 1/2 hours to do the last 8 k's !!! and on paper it has been another long day on The Camino. But the best of the day is yet to come as Rhon will no doubt tell you when we wake up.
The centrepiece of this town is yes, another cathedral Santo Domingo which dates from the 12th century. However it is by far the most splendid cathedral we have been to yet. The architecture and paintings are truly amazing, and a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic influences. A live cock and hen are in living in the cathedral and relate to a local legend. It was a tradition for pilgrims to take a feather from them but these days they are out of reach. Apparently a German couple and their you young son stopped for a couple of days rest and one of the town's ladies fell in love with him. He rejected her advances, she got pissed off, accused him of stealing a chalice from the church and was subsequently hanged. By some miracle when the parents returned from Santiago, still grief stricken, he was hanging but still alive. They went to the King's Representative to tell him, he was eating his dinner and pointed to the two fowl in the pot and said "your son is about as alive as this cock and hen" whereby the two birds jumped up and bit him on the nose, and the rest is history! Hence I ordered the lamb stew for dinner last night and not the chicken!
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