April 2026 – Page 3 – WynChar Camino 2026

April 24: Travel and Walking Day, Nájara to Santo Domingo de la Calzada

Miles walked: 6.7

Cumulative miles walked: 122.5

Stairs climbed equivalence: 0 (but lots of fairly steep downhill). We are on the 4th floor in our hotel but (yay!) there is an elevator, so I won’t get any stair walking in at the hotel. However, Charlie is taking the stairs!

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where we are tonight, might be translated Santo Domingo of the Road. Or perhaps Saint Sunday of the Road.

The 13 miles between Nájara and Santo Domino was more than we semi-pilgrims wanted to do, so from our hotel this morning we headed for the taxi stand by the bus stop, got a taxi, and asked him to take us to a point 7 miles along the Camino.

The point where we asked him to let us off was a place we remembered from being here in 2013 and 2014: a large golf course surrounded by hundreds (thousands?) of condominiums of various styles. In 2013, only 5 years after the 2008 economic collapse that was devastating to Spain, this place was a ghost town. Before the collapse, there had been a huge building boom in Spain but then the money ran out and we saw so many deserted constructions sites then. This place was one of them and was particularly shocking to us. So, we were curious to see it 13 years later. We were glad to see it is no longer a ghost town. Most of the condos looked like they were being maintained pretty well. I asked the taxi driver about it and he said it’s usually fairly empty this time of the year but in the summer it fills up. So, it is now a vacation destination for Spaniards, because of the golf course. Here is the video Charlie made about it in 2013: https://photos.app.goo.gl/jAUUPEjnhH53Z6JR8

Condos by the golf course today. There’s even a cute little playground and a swimming pool.

A steady stream of peregrinos walking into Santo Domingo

The classic Camino photo. I particularly love this part of the walk. Strangely, though we are still in La Rioja, no vineyards today, which is fine with me!

For the sake of truth in advertising, we do walk through some places like this, industrial area before getting into town.

But Santo Domino, population 6400, is a vibrant little town. This is in front of the bar where we are now blogging.

Here’s the inside. We walked around town a while to find this bar — looking for one with good music and this is a winner! We love blogging and listening to good music. Today, an interesting mixture of American and Spanish pop music, seems mostly from the 80s. Love is All Around (Wet Wet Wet), Like a Prayer (Madonna), I Was Made for Loving You (Kiss), I Will Love Again (Lara Fabian), I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Whitney Houston), Friends Will Be Friends (Queen) can be perfect if you are in the right mood. The bartender has been singing along. The Spanish seem to really like American music. Who can blame them?

We really like our hotel: Rey Pedro I. She proudly showed us some exposed wall in the sitting room downstairs — part of the city wall from the 14th century.

And on a sad note. We thought we’d switch things up and have Indian food at the place next to our hotel. Disappointing food, but the sad part was what was showing on the TV while we ate. It’s hard to get away from the depressing news. Here is the Spanish president responding to Trump’s attempt to get Spain out of NATO.

To give you an idea of the bar culture in Spain. In Google maps I typed in “bar near me” and this is what I got. We checked out about half these bars looking for the one with the right music! Kind of embarrassing just poking your head in the door and then leaving, but worth it. Most places just had televisions going. As Charlie mentioned in a previous post, bars here are really community gathering places. At least three I poked my head into had old men gathered around a table playing card games. Currently there is a family in the table next to us with a child. These are really tapas and coffee bars that happen to also sell alcohol. You rarely see heavy drinking in Spain. Public drunkenness meets strong disapproval. PS. The red line at the top of the map is the Camino. It goes through the old town and misses a lot of the vibrancy of Santo Domingo. However, it is a camino stage town so I’m sure many pilgrims explore the town well.

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I’m always on the lookout for interesting Camino markers, a little set of three.

Haystacks

If you saw “The Way” you might remember the scene in the haystacks. On our 2013 Camino we were excited to see them, looking just like in the movie. And there were a lot of them. This year we have seen only a few and they seemed old and deteriorating. One we saw was being taken down and hauled away. I guess new technology has made them obsolete. In previous Caminos (more northern ones) we saw the hay in wheels that were enclosed in plastic, keeps them drier I guess. In fact, during a previous Caminos I uncovered a sinister plot involving them. I’ll say no more.

Back in the 1960s in LA I used to watch wrestling from the Olympic Auditorium. And “Whoa, Nellie!” Dick Lane was a great announcer and Gorgeous George really put it to the pencil necks. I don’t remember him wrestling at the Olympic but these photos make me think of Haystacks Calhoun.

These guys were all fascinating characters.

April 23: Walking Day, Navarrete to Nájara.

Miles walked: 10.7 (a little over a mile of that has been around Nájara).

Total miles walked to date: 115.8

Flights of stairs climbed (equivalence): only 22

We were on the trail by a little before 7:00 this morning. The earliest we’ve gotten out, I think. Trying to beat the heat. It’s been unseasonably warm here. Highs in the 80s. Very hot in the sun. However, it wasn’t quite so hot today (76) and there was a brisk wind so we were actually kind of cold. No complaints!!

We met a nice couple from Ottawa, Canada, today who matched our pace pretty well. We ended up eating breakfast together in Ventosa, about 4 miles from the beginning of the walk. They were excited to learn about ordering fried eggs and toast. (It took us quite a while of camino-ing to realize we could ask for things not advertised on any menu. They hadn’t yet realized that.)

So, it was a mostly typical day on the Camino: up, walk, breakfast, walk, get to our town, find our hotel, be told it’s too early to check in but we can leave our pack, go to find a place for lunch, eat a nice menu del dia, go back to the hotel to check in, get to our room, unpack a bit, rest a bit, shower, rest some more (maybe even take a nap), set up pack transfer for tomorrow, go out for a stroll, look for a bar and have a light supper snack, blog. Soon we’ll go to bed, hopefully sleep well, and start it again tomorrow. Good thing we like this routine.

Two out-of-routine things did happened. (1) I’ve gotten a pretty bad blister on my little toe. So a visit to a farmacia for some mole skin to pad it (recommendation from my new Canadian friend as we were commiserating about our blisters). And (2) Charlie’s neat foldable hat blew off his head while we were crossing a bridge and it fell into the river. Irretrievable.

One more photo of where we stayed last night in Navarrete. Charlie walking up the steps to our albergue after we were done with blogging.

Leaving Navarette this morning. We had a cat join us for a while.

We’ve already walked alongside miles of vineyards. La Rioja is famous for its wines. And often when we see vineyards, nearby will be an olive grove. In the above photo, grapes on the right, olives on the left, and pilgrims piling up in the middle.

Can you spot Charlie’s hat? It doesn’t look irretrievable in this photo but there was quite a bit of water flowing on both sides of the river. He dropped it near a little island in the mddle.

Poor little hat seen from above through telephoto lens.

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Just after sunrise, walking through huge vineyards.

Out before sunrise which is not until 7:15 because of Spain’s whacky time zone, thanks Franco.

Massive vineyards to make the La Rioja wine.

We walked by several wineries like this one. We often see olive tree orchards beside the vineyards. This olive tree looks very old based on the size of its trunk. I liked the topiary style pruning.

This is the bar in Ventosa where we had breakfast, our usual fried eggs and toast.

Here is the inside of the bar. You can see Wynette, or Dorothy as she goes by here, going to the table we are sharing with a Canadian couple we met on the trail. Of course, we apologized for the abominable behavior of our country towards Canada.

Every bar has an ice cream freezer like this, nothing special there, but …

On the other wall I see this. What? Gelato in La Rioja? I have never seen anything like this in a Spanish bar. The blue one is *nube*, cloud, or in this case, marshmallow. So how is this sourced? Isn’t it a lot of work to make gelato? And 12 flavors? Right behind the little white truck that brings the daily bread delivery to the bar is the refrigerated gelato truck?

The Zia Symbol

We have the following patch on Charlie’s backpack — the pack we carry on the Camino with things we need for the day.

I had it on my back pack the past few caminos. Over the years we’ve had a few people stop us who recognized the Zia symbol. It happened again today. We were sitting in front of our albergue drinking coffee and a woman came up and said “I saw your Zia symbol”. She then held out her arm to show us her tattoo.

She said she grew up in Santa Fe and her father still lives there. She moved to France when she was 20 and has lived there ever since. (She looked to be 40 to 45.) She said she had met 3 people on the Camino this year who are from Albuquerque. We haven’t met any (other) New Mexicans yet.

April 22: Logroño to Navarrete.

Miles walked: 9.0

Flights of stairs equivalent climbed: 44

The first mile or two out of Logroño was through the city. The next 4 or 5 miles were along a long green path that ended in a gigantic park beside a reservoir. A huge very nice dog park, a huge very nice children’s playground, lots of forest and picnic tables and such. Impressive. Then we walked alongside some vineyards. And then we walked a mile or two on a path next to a huge noisy freeway (what they call an autopista). Then finally into the cute hill town of Navarrete.

We are staying in a private room in an albergue. It’s nice being back in pilgram-land after a couple of days of isolation from that in our apartment in Logroño.

The day in photos:

Starting our day on the camino, early morning, walking along Calle Portales, under the long portal.

Camino shell used in sidewalks in Logroño to mark the way.

**One in 10 Pilgrims walk in the dirt (based on this small sample)**. Walking through the miles of parkway on the outskirts of Logroño. As soon as we saw the soft dirt path on the side of the pavement we moved over. The pavement gets tiring on the feet. Rare to find soft non-rocky dirt. Bliss.

Park rules. I’m pretty sure this is the exact same sign we saw 13 years ago.

Walking along the autopista. Pilgrims have woven stick crosses in the chain link fence.

An iconic Osborne bull seen from behind. They were originally billboards dating from the 1950s advertising sherry and brandy. When billboards were banned in Spain in 1994, public outcry saved them (without the advertising). About 90 of 500 remain in Spain now. We passed one of them today on our walk. (Silver lining to walking along a noisy autopista.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_bull

We haven’t seen a lot of this kind of graffiti this time. Not sure why. But more today.

Iglesia de Santa María de la Asunción in Navarrete. This little town has a population of 3000 so it’s stunning to see this church here. Built in the 1500s.

Check out this alter. It’s gold. We assume gold leaf. We put a euro in a slot and the altar was illuminated for 5 minutes. So many other wonderful sculptures and painting here. Henry and Moira, I think you can teach us more about this amazing church.

The large incense burner was hanging in the middle of the nave. Not as big as the one in the Santiago cathedral, but impressive.

Our albergue for the night. The best! Albergue de la Iglesia. Next door to the church.

Our cute private room with private bath. And, yes, that’s a third bed up on the shelf.

Portales

My mom grew up in Portales, a town in southeastern New Mexico. My dad grew up in Dora which is very near Portales. My Aunt Theressa still lives in Portales.

I knew that Portales was the Spanish word for porches, or portals. When we were in Logroño in 2013, we stayed in Hotel Portales. Yesterday we were walking through Logroño on the street that runs beside the cathedral and I noticed several business with Portales in their name. I thought, “what is it about the word portales that makes it such a big deal around here? Maybe I’ll ask in the hotel.”

Then, I realized that the street we were walking down was named Portales Street! Oh, that explains why so many businesses are named Portales. And then, duh, I realized we’d been walking under a huge porch/portal that went on for several blocks. We were quite enjoying the coolness it provided. So, I suppose the street was named for the porch!!

April 21: Rest Day in Logroño

Miles walked per my watch: 6.75 (all in Logroño)

Flights of stairs climbed: 2. That might be actual stairs. Logroño is pretty flat.

We had a low key day. Went to the post office which is always fun. The post offices here are great. They are clearly there to help! We needed to mail a package to Burgos. Plus we had received a notice that the suitcase we mailed from Pamplona to Sahagún would be returned to sender if it wasn’t picked up by April 30. Well, we won’t get to Sahagún till May 6. We had told them May 6 (twice) when we mailed the suitcase in Pamplona but I guess that didn’t get communicated. So, we asked at the PO here what to do about this dilemma. It turned out that the Pamplona PO put down the Sahagún PO as our return address. So, I guess the Sahagún PO will send it to the Sahagún PO. The woman in the Logroño PO this morning told me “tranquila”, not to worry. But it still makes me nervous; we will try to contact the Sahagún PO directly.

Then we walked about a mile to the main train station to get a Tarjeta Dorado (Gold Card) which is a year pass for old people to get a big discount on train tickets. But, unfortunately, for some reason, the entire main ticket and information office in the train station was closed this morning, and only this morning. So … No Tarjeta Dorado (yet) for us. (We were too lazy to walk back there this afternoon.)

Then we walked to the cathedral. There is a Michaelangelo (attributed at least) behind the alter and I wanted to see that. But … The cathedral was closed.

We walked down Laurel Street, famous for its tapas. Seemed much more upscale than it was when we were here 13 years ago. We ended up coming home and making good sandwiches in our apartment.

We did go out again and got to go into the cathedral this time. BUT, the light wasn’t working to show the Michaelangelo painting. It was enclosed in glass and there was so much glare you couldn’t see it without the inside light working.

So … It was a bit of an off-kilter day. Charlie and I are eager to get back on the trail tomorrow.