Day: April 24, 2018

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We discovered rome2rio.com last Camino. It is very good and fun. Just put in two cities and it tells you all the ways to get from one to the other. It is great for finding buses when you want to skip a bad section. It is mostly accurate although occasionally we find errors. Not surprising when you think about the amount of information in their database. From Islares to Laredo it identified the right bus but put the fare at 20 euros (it was 1.35). A taxi was 19-21 euros.

We had another instance today where the Camino went up a hill and along a high point in order to bypass a flat section of road. There was a town along the road so we missed all the bars. Luckily we did not need to stop at a bar at that point but I wondered what the town thought about losing the Camino business. The Camino del Norte does not seem to be busy enough for the pilgrim traffic to be of much consequence.

On the Camino Frances and the Camino Portuguese we saw several instances of “sign wars” where the Camino organizers skipped a bad section and made it more pleasant and the bar and restaurant owners along the bad section would paint out the Camino yellow arrows with black paint and put the old ones back sending pilgrims past their establishments. Our Portuguese blog has some photos of obliterated signs.

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Pobeña was the last town we stayed in in Pais Vasco, also known as Vizcaya (Basque Country). We started seeing more Spanish names before that but after Pobeña it was all Spanish. No more x’s and k’s. Castro Urdiales was our first stay in Cantabria. The pintxos petered out a bit and now, after a few days, they are not nearly as good. We didn’t have much of a sense of Cantabria and what it would be like. We will enter Asturias in about 9 days. (For more about the regions of Spain see this. We started in 4, now we are in 3, next is 2. Santiago is in 1.)

After Islares the Camino follows the N-234 road into Laredo. All road walking with a narrow shoulder. We decided to take the bus. We caught it at the above bus stop near our hotel and it was 20 minutes to Laredo for 1.35 euro each. A good choice.

In researching the Camino del Norte there was consensus about a few things: (1) lots of ups and downs, (2) beautiful views, (3) very green, (4) much less busy than the Camino Frances, (5) lots of paved sections. All of these have turned out to be true.

We have found though that the paved roads have not been a problem. I would guess that 70-80% of the path so far has been on pavement, asphalt, or boardwalk, that is, artificial surfaces. Some of this is paved walking paths. Some of it is on small rural roads where you get a car every 5 minutes or less. A little is on busier roads and maybe 1-2% is on roads with small shoulders where you worry a little.

We like walking through the rural neighborhoods. And the paved paths are not muddy like the forest paths. So we have been quite satisfied with this aspect of the Camino del Norte.

Post by Wynette: We walked 9.8 miles today. It was a pretty walk past green fields, but a few miles inland. Was not as fun or interesting as yesterday. Those ocean views kind of spoil you. It was mostly along quiet paved country roads. Exception was a brief respite from road walking through a field. (Yes, that is the official Camino above.) It reminded us of the Via Francigena.

For the first 7.5 miles there were no services (bars, restaurants, bathrooms). We had planned to stop at the 7.5 mile mark but after resting and having coffee and fried eggs and toast, we decided, since we hadn’t yet made any reservations, to go a little further.