Logrono is a rapidly growing university city of about 150,000. It took quite a while to walk through the frenzied morning traffic of the city centre and high rise residential areas before reaching a beautiful quiet green ribbon of a park that took us to the outskirts. There we went through Parque de la Grajera, a large reservoir and wildlife park. Lots of locals were out walking, jogging and cycling. We passed old men fishing the lake, walked through pine forest, a huge children’s play area and stopped at an excellent cafe (which had toilets – yeah).

Probably the highlight of the day was in the first town we came to, Navarette. The church of Iglesia de La Asuncion contains one of the most stunning Baroque retablos in Spain. The retablo is a screen behind the altar divided into columns and rows, each framing a carved figure. This retablo is huge and sumptuous with a profusion of gold gilding.

The renaissance church itself is amazing and Barbara was moved to pay twenty cents to light a tea candle for all the people she loved (not one each). So we hope at 9.38pm on Friday evening NZ time you felt the love.

Also at Navarette we were able to visit the cemetery. We have seen many cemeteries, located a short distance out side each town or village. They are surrounded by high walls and so far all have had locked gates. At Navarette the gate was ajar so we went in to take a peak. There was a Romanesque entrance with the capitals of the columns depicting scenes such as the hero Roland battling the giant Ferragut, St George slaying the Dragon, a pilgrim eating and drinking, and a pilgrim washing another’s hair. The grave stones and mausoleums were very elaborate and since the bursting of the housing bubble maybe worth more than some of the houses in the village.

Last night Paul excelled himself with his command of Spanish. Our hotel package includes breakfast every day and dinner every day except four. One of those was last night in Logrono. We went out at 7pm to look for food, absolutely starving, knowing bars and restaurants don’t start serving food till late. We couldn’t find anything, not even tapas bars. Finally saw a Burger King and settled for that. So “Dos Whoppers con Coca Cola por favor”. Well done Paul. I can tell you a Burger King Whopper in Logrono is exactly the same as one in Paraparaumu, and probably Timbuktu.

Yesterday and today were both 26km days and on both we did “optional scenic route” extras so probably 28kms each day. We are right into the rhythm of it now so 20km days are very comfortable. 25+ days we get tired at the end but recover overnight to be fresh for the next day. We swear Spanish kilometres are longer than kiwi kilometres, and the Spanish ones are elastic, they stretch longer as the day goes on.

Lovely cool weather for walking today. For the last hour there was a small amount of rain so we tried out our ponchos, just to be with the “in” crowd. We loved our ponchos, we are real peregrinos now. This is the first time we have used them since we bought them in Hobart. Thank you Mike and Tammy and Pippa and Charlie and Millie.

A fairly flat walk today and on excellent paths. The La Rioja region has rich red clay soil which looks great but when it gets wet it sticks to your boots like leeches. After the parks of this morning most of the day was through vineyards but for about an hour late in the day the path ran parallel to a busy motorway. The drone of the vehicles was unpleasant so it was here we took the extra scenic route to get out of earshot.