Month: April 2026

There are some terms that are international, like taxi and hotel. It seems that WiFi is one of those, whether you say why fi or wee-fee as they tend to say here.

We stopped at this albergue for breakfast a few days ago. I noticed the ceiling and the massive timbers and was looking up at it. The guy at the bar noticed me doing this and came over to our table and told us that the huge beam going across the top of the photo was a single piece of wood and was Douglas fir. He said it pronounced the Spanish way but we finally figured it out. He was pleased we were admiring it because he said it was his work.  He worked with wood.

In the next few days we saw lots of example of wood ceilings like this. I guess these big wood pieces used to be affordable.

In Valcarlos, Wynette was busy texting to Rhada, from the Netherlands, about getting a taxi over to the Napoleon route. Rhada was busy texting with Wynette and an Australian couple she met (Claire and Phil) who wanted to do the same thing. Then Wynette started feeling poorly and we dropped out of the ride.

The next day, we were taking our 15 minute tour of Roncesvalles and we started talking to a woman we’d never seen before about a building we were looking at. Her Australian accent was clear, so Wynette asked her “are you from Australia?”. She said yes. Wynette asked, “Is your name Claire?” She was shocked.  “How did you know my name?” We explained. After that we were saying that Claire had a good story to tell her husband. And we had a good story to put in the blog.

Here are the bunk beds at the albergue we are staying at in Uterga, 15€. We are staying in a private room for 60€.

The room doesn’t have a window. It has a desk but no chair.  It was very hard to find a place to stay in this little town.  Definitely the funkiest place we’ve stayed so far!

Wynette is still feeling a bit off and WordPress has been giving us problems. Back tomorrow from Pamplona.

Our 2013 blog has the same photo except the sign was pristine and Wynette was a little younger. I guess these stickers are a thing but I liked it better before.

Today was the transition between three beautiful sunny days and the three rainy days to come.

We thought it odd to have just these few graves we could see walking along the road above this view. Then we noticed the rest of the cemetery above the road. Beautiful monuments.

Just outside of Roncesvalles.