Day 12 : Buon Camino

Day 12 : Buon Camino, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

We spent the night at the Posada of Roncesvalles, a historic pilgrim refuge in the middle of the mountains at the top of the Roncevaux Pass. Although nowadays a bit more upscale than in the old time the prices to stay and dine here are still very moderate; e.g. a bottle of AOC wine only cost 6 Euro and since that bottle was all mine we slept a bit longer than usual :-)

While the sun was evaporating the morning mist we enjoyed a lazy start and visited the beautiful abbey church. About ready to climb on our tandem again, we met a nice Canadian old man who was looking for help to make a phone call home. He had started out on the Camino but after a couple of days he decided to abandon. The culture shock in combination with the physical challenge, he told us, was more than he could handle. And still he looked sad as if he would be missing something.



As soon as the sun had the blue sky all for her alone the temperature kept rising to some 31 C. We had planned to start only by early afternoon since the short 48 km ride to Pamplona appeared easy - coming down from nearly a 1000 meters high to about 460 m promised to turn into a bicycle adrenaline feast... Sure there was a lot of downhill let-it-go, but we hadn't counted on two relatively long steep climbs - they might not have been as long as we sensed it, mainly because we hadn't expected these obstacles. As a result, those two climbs became also our first confrontation with the burning Spanish sun and some fierce Spanish flies.



On our way we passed several medieval bridges as old as the Camino itself. One of them was from the 14th century and was named El Puente de los Bandidos, referring once more to the uncertain existence of those early day pilgrims.



Unlike in France, we're no longer alone here on our way to Santiago, from now on you meet streams of hikers (but still less bikers) all wishing each other "Buon Camino!" But also local people of all ages send a smile and a "Buon Camino!" to you. More and more we're becoming part of this omnipresent cultural heritage.



The approach to Pamplona was uphill for a change and bathing in sweat we arrived at our hotel. A good bath does miracles in those circumstances and so we still found the time to stroll through this pleasant and lively city, made famous by Ernest Hemingway - who is still well commemorated here.

Our restaurant didn't open till 21:30 (which explains probably one element of the cultural shock of our poor Canadian friend) but luckily there is a remedy for such a situation: tapas :-) We finished the day once more in a tasty way: the Michelin-star Rodero restaurant was more than worth to wait for it to open!