Day 7 – Estella to Los Arcos

Estella turned out to be a beautiful little town with a lovely plaza, where we had a couple of pre-dinner drinks.

We had a choice today of the main route, which passed through three towns before Los Arcos and lay on the east facing slope of Monjardin or a more remote variant that lay on the west facing slope of Montejurra. We chose the latter and stocked up on food from a grocer as we left Estella, passing the Fuente de Vino before splitting from the main route.

We were rewarded with a lovely morning’s walk in shade through a holm oak forest, protected from the morning sun by the mountain, before breaking out into the sun, passing today’s peak and descending, fairly gently, into the town of Luquin for a rest and coffee at a cafe at the local swimming pool!

Neither route provided any respite for a tough afternoon’s walk in full sun – we rejoined the main route 2.2km from Luquin and slogged it out for the next 9km.

At about 1pm, with no rest stop in sight, we sat down on a corner, Al on top of the waymarker and me on the ground, and ate the food we had bought earlier in Estella. About 2km further on, and a couple of kms from Los Arcos, we came across a picnic area and did stop, this time for Al to do some blister repairs.

Just after 2.30pm we were very relieved to see Los Arcos and to rest before being picked up and taken to our off camino accommodation, Hostel Ioar in a town called Solada.

21kms today for a total of 142km so far, and the route video is here.