Jeanne's Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela: June 2023

Villatuerta to Villamayor de Monjardin
Saturday, March 26th, 2023
13.5 km

Breakfast this morning was a small plain yogurt, 3 small slices of yummy toast w/butter and jam, orange juice, and a couple of cafe con leches. It was way too much and I paid for my overindulgence later in today's walk/hike. My tummy started acting up almost immediately after exiting the village. Not fun. I had a serious bio break before the next town in some bushes. I learned my lesson about not having a big breakfast!

I stopped in a few charming churches this morning. One was right outside of Villatuerta. The Emita de San Miguel was located in an olive grove. There were also picnic tables and it would've made an ideal idyllic place for a picnic. This hermitage was originally connected to a monastery. The 11th century monastery is no longer there.

The second church I visited located in Estella.

Ensalada Mixta, not too appetizing but, I needed the vegetables

Ancient water cistern

Iglesia de San Andres

Puente la Reina to Villatuerta
Friday, March 24th, 2023
18km

Wow! Another exhausting day. I had a quick breakfast at the hotel bar before embarking on my today's walk. On my way out of town, I visited the Puente la Reina churches again to take a few more pictures. This morning I paid the euro fee to light up the retablos. Totally worth it, the golden retablos sparkled with the additional lighting. After saying a few prayers, I was on my way out of town. At the very edge of Puente la Reina, I looked back to see the bridge again. Of course, it was lit different than yesterday afternoon, so I had to shoot a few more photos. After all, I am doing the tourist view of walking the Camino.

While I was walking out of the village, I recited the decades of the rosary. Last year, while walking out of this town, I met a mother/daughter duo from Ireland. We walked together most of the day. It was one of my nicest days on the way.

There were virtually no other pilgrims for the majority of my walk. I only had one conversation today. After the town of Cirauqui, I met an ICU nurse from Germany named Efa. She lives in a town named Regensburg about an hour away from Munich.

One of the highlights of today was walking on a cobblestone 2000 year old Roman road and bridge. It wasn't easy to walk on due to the unevenness of the stones, but who cares. I walked on a 2000 year old road! This road was located on the outskirts of Cirauqui.

My feet are sore, but slightly better than the past few days. The casa rural I am staying at is interesting. I think the house was at least 100 years old, maybe older. I had the entire attic floor to myself. There were cobwebs in the ceiling and structurally it looked questionable. I am learning a lot of these casa rurals look different on paper/website than when you are staying there. Oh well. It is a bed and a roof over my head.