Day 117
Gold!
We started the day with a chat with the Grey Gappers, heading home after years on the road with their camper van. We feel lucky to be at the beginning of our adventures.
I hate cycling through cities, the Garmin always does a go slow and I get miserable and snappy. Today though leaving Logrono was fine, we even found a great shop for some bread and cheese.
After spending the last few days on the old main road we expected to re-join It today, but no, we were on the Camino! For the next 8 miles we enjoyed a great off-road track. Then back on the road, however the Camino provided a short cut so Komoot sent us on it. Not a good idea. Steep, ruts, boulders, and more ruts. It reminded me of the downhill from Lilla only worse. Not a great climb, Tom had to rescue me at one point as it was simply too steep to push up!
We were keen to cover the miles and when I saw that we were to divert uphill to a small rather run down village, I suggested we bypass it. Tom cajoled me to give it a go. The climb though steep was manageable and it is always enchanting to cycle through a town that looks unchanged for hundreds of years. We stopped to eat our lunch in the village square. As I set on with unpacking the picnic Tom popped into the church, the Iglesia Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion. It was a large, rather plain building and he was soon back out. Then I realised he was very excited. We had almost bypassed a masterpiece. The church sits in the centre of the village, it was designed to the nucleus of the village with all streets and squares surrounding it. Inside was simply breath-taking. So much larger than it appeared from outside, and dominated by its main altarpiece. This is one of the finest pieces of Riojan Barroque works from the end of the 17th century, a wall of golden columns. We forgot about lunch and gazed dumbstruck at the artistic masterpiece. Just a bit worried about what other masterpieces we’ve missed.
Leaving the village it was back to hills on the main road. No traffic to speak off, though we did get chatting to a fellow tourer, riding to Rio. His Instagram is fribourg_rio_by_bike. As he was about 30 plus years younger with a bit less kit we politely wished him a good journey and looked for a wild camp site for ourselves. The Romans camped round here in caves in the nearby mountains, but we settled for a farmer’s field. A stunning view to look at as we drank our 85p litre of Rioja!
