When we arrived we in Los Arcos in 2024, you may recall the town’s bull run was taking place and we were met with a brass band and full-on festivities with large crowds to match.

This year there was no such festival, and the town was emptier than a spinster’s larder. On the plus side, however, we did find a half-decent place to eat a pilgrim’s meal – not a bad thing given Spanish pub and restaurant kitchen hours do not suit pilgrims who want an early night.

Leaving Los Arcos this time was a lot drier than in 2024, so no deep wet mud.

Viana was much as we remembered it, and – after a quick shower, we made for the same asador as last time for epic quantities of txistorra, txuletón, and red wine.

After that, we went for a walk round, and bumped into Dave – the owner of Pensión San Pedro – and his dog Ziggy. Dave’s an expat who was very knowledgeable about this local area and the history of Viana, and we spent the next few hours shooting the breeze over a fair few glasses of rosado.

After Viana came Logroño, the capital of La Rioja. Given the relatively short walk to reach it (10km) and the upcoming 28km walk to get to our next stop – Nájera, we figured a rest day was in order. Not only did this give us time to sample some amazing pintxos, but also to visit Michelin-starred Ikaro 🤤. We even managed to find a pintxos shop selling percebes (barnacles)!

On the way to Nájera tomorrow, we’ll pass through Navarette – home of that black pudding photo from 2024.

The weather will likely be the warmest we’ve had to walk in for a long time, so we plan on leaving at 6am to avoid the worst of it. It’ll be a relatively cool 13°C then, going up to 34°C by 5pm 🥵! Hopefully we’ll arrive by around 2pm when it’s only going to be 31°C 😬.