Day 6 – Puente la Reina to Estella

Our accommodation last night was quite interesting – a cross between ski lodge and albergue. It was obviously set up for walkers – our dinner was strictly at 6:30pm (very early for Spain) and we had to be finished by 7:45pm for the next sitting! Breakfast from 6:30am (I didn’t think Spanish clocks had times that early on them!) so people in surrounding rooms started stirring early, which had the advantage of getting us going earlier than usual. The last few mornings have been beautiful but it starts getting warm – low 30s – in the afternoon.

All of that said, another good days walking with relatively little elevation change. We walked about a km into the lovely little town of Puente la Reina, across the riò Arga on the eponymous bridge and then off towards the village of Mañeru, where we stopped for a coffee.

It started yesterday after Pamplona and today confirmed we are out of the rolling foothills of the Pyrenees and into farming country. Being autumn the fields have been harvested and look dry. The architecture has also changed from the typical basque orange roofs and white walls to less distinctive colors.

From Mañeru we headed through the elevated village of Cirauqui and on to Lorca (also elevated) for lunch. From there onto Villatuerta, which was a fairly new town, where we had another coffee before pressing on to Estella.

It felt like a long afternoon – the guidebook seems to consistently be a couple of kms short, especially in the last sections of a stage. I’m saying 24kms today for 121kms in total, 10kms more than the guidebook over the six days we’ve walked.

Today’s video is here.