The walk from Obanos to Estella as our first along the Camino Frances, and what a difference. Because the Camino Frances is so heavily traveled, there is lots of pilgrim infrastructure: places to stop for food or drink, shops selling walking sticks and the like, and multiple albergues. And, of course, we are now seeing lots of other pilgrims.
Just a few km from Obanos we passed through Puente de la Reina. The town has a lovely bridge over the Arga river, and grew up around pilgrim traffic almost a millenium ago. There were other villages every 5 km or so along this stage: handy for a cool drink stop on what was a hot day.
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| walking through Cirauqui |
Past the village of Cirauqui, we walked for a while through farmland on one of the original Roman roads. Although there is still a lot of grain farming here, we are seeing increasing numbers of vineyards as we work our way into wine country.
We arrived in the small city of Estella late in the afternoon. This is a very pretty spot, built around a river and climbing the hills on either side. We'd learned from another pilgrim along the way that the town was celebrating a local festival, the Virgen del Puy, this day. After locating a hotel and washing up, we headed out into the party. One plaza had a rock band playing; another a block away had what appeared to be a Mexican group. A third was running children's games.
In the early evening we sat outside a bar to eat. We had lively conversation with the people sitting next to us, and we all squeezed together under the awning when a brief but strong thunderstorm passed over. At about 10, a wheeled artificial bull loaded with fireworks was brought out, and children ran before it as the fireworks went off and it was pulled around and around the plaza.
Between enjoying the town's fiesta, and getting very little sleep that night due to the street noise, we decided to spend another day in town. More pics to follow.
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