26 Sep 2023: Logroño

Seems I’m sticking to the theme of planning “shorter” days that don’t turn out to be short at all. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Got underway from Vianda just after 8; the route meanders it’s way out of town. Bless those route-choosers, they really work hard to keep us in pedestrian-friendly areas — sometimes too hard! Especially in suburban areas, where there’s no readily apparent logic for the routing, a few more markers would be really helpful.

Once out of town, it is a gentle descent through industrial agriculture, until we have the gratuitous hills on the industrial outskirts of Logroño.

This is a real city — probably 200,000. And my lodgings are Nowhere. Near. Old. Town. As in, about a km away. I should explain. First, the Camino routing invariably takes us through the historic town centers, especially the churches and historic hostal locations. The restaurants, cafes, and other services for pilgrims cluster in these areas, along with almost all pilgrim-oriented lodging.

My WisePilgrim app very helpfully shows all this on their map. They also have a link for lodging, and this is where I went off the rails. Since I’m taking a rest day here (I like to do that in cities, so I can look around), I didn’t want to stay in an Albergue. So I picked a Pension with a reasonable price (private room, shared bath). The room is fine. Getting into it was problematic, the neighborhood is not very nice, and it’s a 15-minute walk to Old Town. And then there’s this really bright streetlight just outside my window.

Lodging: Pension La Estación, Logroño