Camino del Norte 2024

Alcohol units: 2 (this is from yesterday, wine with lunch)
Miles walked: 11.3
Route changes from 2018: several
Episcopal priests on sabbatical: 1 (and her partner)
Tunnels: 1 (and thank you to St. James)

A little longer day than our usual but blessed by a tunnel through a 650 foot hill that we did not have to climb. It was not on our track but the yellow arrows took us through.

There have been a lot of small changes to the Camino path since 2018 and since our GPS track was recorded. The biggest one was right the beginning. In 2018 we climbed up over 100 steps to a path cut into the side of the cliff lead down to the water. It was originally a right of way for a small train. A spectacular path. See our 2018 for photos. They changed it to a mundane path with no views of the ocean but lots of mud and ups and downs. We are not fans. The best change was the tunnel.

It is fun when you meet people several times like we did with the priest (female) and her partner. They were from Boston. Lots of travel choices from Boston. They came over on Icelandic Airlines and are going back stopping in the Azores. We looked into stopping in the Azores this trip but the details didn’t work out. The advantage is that you can take a 6 hour daytime flight from Boston, stay a day or two in the Azores (which looked really nice), and then a short flight to Madrid. We do not like the overnight flights. She was on sabbatical and they spent time in France and are now walking the whole Camino del Norte (about 500 miles).

We took the blue path. Note: I created all these google map posts before we left so the date inside the map will be wrong because of our dynamic changes.

Charlie and I’ve come to appreciate soccer more since we watched Ted Lasso. Of course, Spain is soccer-crazy. And, of course, they don’t call it soccer, they call it fútbol.

When we got to our hotel yesterday we noticed red and white striped flags along the front (photo above). When we checked in we asked about what they were for. The young woman took us over to see a newspaper. The local soccer team (Bilbao) had just won the Spanish King’s Cup (Copa del Rey) the Spanish championship match. Later we noticed the flags all over town and saw this in the bar where we had breakfast this morning.

Today we had our first tortilla of this trip. It’s what we had for breakfast in a bar between Portugalete and La Arena. A Spanish tortilla is not like a US/Mexico/New Mexico tortilla. A Spanish tortilla is sometimes described as an omelette. It’s made from eggs and potatoes and onions. A bit firmer/thicker than an omelette. The one we had this morning also had ham and cheese. Quite yummy with the good bread you get here. Holly, I know how much you liked these when you did the Camino. Thought of you.

It swings side to side like a battering ram.

This was in one short tunnel.

Last night in Portugalete we splurged on a four-star hotel (still less than $100). Would you say the towel is big enough?

It was heavy, too. I couldn’t bring myself to use another of these (waste all those resources to wash and dry it) so I just dried with Charlie’s towel.