21.55km (229.94km)
Sunday 3rd April

I’m not quite sure what was going on in Nájera last night but a quick Google search revealed that Real Madrid was playing Barcelona so I can only assume that the all night partying in the street below my room had something to do with that. They were still drinking in the streets as I left, at 7:30am today; lots of helpful, drunk football fans directing us early-to-bed, grumpier than usual (due to lack of sleep) pilgrims. I should add that a few of the pilgrims were looking rather the worse for wear this morning so maybe it’s just the older ones that are early to bed?

The walk was rather uneventful, even monotonous, this sounds negative but is not meant to be and I know there can’t be 30 days of riveting walking stories (or even one for that matter) to relate when the paths are relatively flat and I’m on my own for much of each day. The good thing is that everyone tends to be on the lookout for coffee at the same points so there is a general gathering a few times along each stage. Azorfa was the first stop, it apparently has a lovely church but it was shut. 9:30 on a Sunday morning seems an unusual time for a church to be shut, but going by the general lethargy around in the early-ish morning and all afternoon everywhere I’ve been on the trip I suppose the church times are later accordingly. Next stop was a strange town called Cirueña, quite unlike the usual lovely little towns and villages that the Way passes through daily. This was a concrete jungle of estates of empty homes; all for sale…it had a great café in the old town though where I had an early lunch with some other walkers, equally bewildered by the ugly town. The walk was short to Santo Domingo de la Calzada but unfortunately it’s been raining since I arrived, so no sight seeing yet.

It’s actually quite hard to be motivated to get out there and explore after walking – I think this would definitely be different if this walk was done with a friend, or two 😊. Also it’s quite offputting to know that you can’t have a wee look around before grabbing a coffee or a glass of something because everything is shut until at least 7; the hotel I’m staying in starts serving dinner at 8…rather too near my Camino bedtime.