Day 5 Rest in a Church

On day 5 we walked from Viana to Logrono and then on to Navarrette. Something we had seen showed the walk to Logrono to be about equivalent to the walk from Logrono to Navarette. So when we reached the big city of Logrono just about 9 as the shops were opening up we relaxed for a while. Took our time over breakfast, walked back to the tourist info place, sat by the river to repack my pack (I'd misplaced my sleeping bag stuff sack. We had to unpack quite a lot to find it.)

Logrono is a big city. I don't know where in these cities the mileage calculators are meant to measure from. All I know is that we walked and walked and walked through the city. Then we hit a path through a city park that seemed to go on forever. At one point we were joined by about 50 third and fourth graders from Navarette who were on a school field trip to the Camino. The were all wearing paper scallop shell necklace name tags, and were happily practicing saying "Buen Camino!"

Eventually they turned off.  Pilgrims behind us reported that they were doing some sort of Camino based scavenger hunt later in the day. 

The day grew hot. Eventually we got out of the busy park and the trail began to climb. And kept going on and on. "Wait," we thought. We thought we were halfway through after about 2 hours of walking. When is this going to end?"  As it happened we finally pulled in to our destination city around 4 and had to drag ourselves uphill through the town to find our Albergue with which we had a reservation. I was really played out. 

Then we passed a big church and there was music coming through the door, voices singing. I called ahead to Lindsay that I was going in. It was beautifully cool in the church. The singing turned out to be a recording but it was still wonderful to sit for a few moments in this huge church. Many of the churches we have seen have not been open so it was a treat to be able to go into this one. It was the kind with a very elaborate gold wall up at the front with all manner of figures tucked into it.  As my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light I wondered what it would be like to worship all of your life in a church more than 500 years old with such a massive gold wall. Would it turn your thoughts toward heaven? All I knew was that I was so grateful for the peace and coolness of the place.

I might eventually have snapped a picture but then my phone rang. It was the folks on the Alburgue where we'd reserved a room. Did we want to cancel?  No no no!  We'll be there, we're coming  

I didn't get a picture of the church but here's a stork on its nest on the way in to Logrono. There's a baby in the nest. Every now and then   it would stretch its neck up to Mama but I wasn't patient or lucky enough to catch that.