After a surprising stay in Estella (much larger town/city that I expected, today was my last day in the Navarra province (Basque Country) and my first steps into the famous La Rioja wine region.

My first stop early in the morning was at the Irache Winery where the famous fountain that has one tap for wine and one for water for pilgrims to taste (they ask you do not abuse the access to the free wine). Actually really good wine, at 9 am:). The rest of the morning a steady climb with great views for the first 12 Km or so. Because I could not get a place to stay in the usual area of Los Arcos, I decided to jump ahead a bit by taxi to Logrono in the heart of the region, famous for their “pinchos” (tapa bars) and will stay here two nights. Long story, I decided to book ahead places to stay rather than winging it as the Camino is getting very busy snd many of the places did not survive Covid so a bit short on accommodation options and prices have gone up a lot. So now I am booked for the next 7 nights and will keep adding as I go along at least a week ahead.

Here are the stats from the start of the walking on April 23 rd till today including todays numbers:

Total walked distance in 8 days:150Km (almost the distance between Ottawa and Kingston for perspective, however through very mountainous landscape, so walking to Kingston would be much much easier)

Total steps: 204,581

Total ascend in elevation: 2907 Meters (8800 Feet)

Tonight I bar hoped to taste a few “pinchos”. The fun thing I saw was various bachelor/bachelorette parties happening at the same time on the streets where the bars are, all of them dresses very silly and doing public dancing and playing games. They were mostly very drunk. I too a couple of pics, not very good as to be discreet, posted some below.