Monday, October 18 - Puente La Reina to Estella

Posting from Santo Domingo de la Calzada

Monday, October 18
We left town later this morning --we met up with Swiss friends again who have done so many different routes of the Camino.

There was a fork in the road - two possible routes at one point and we took the less traveled. It was an adventure and led us to Ciriguiz - and the Church of San Roman. A wonderful old city with twisting medieval streets. Our art-archaeology book told us of the delightful church interior, but it was closed. So we decided to sit on the bench by the church and eat the bread and cheese we had bought earlier at a store in the village. It was another clear day and the stones by the church wall were warm from the sun. The village was very quiet -- the homes also looked shuttered and empty, but we had seen a few people in the tiny grocery store. Most of them much old women.

As we were eating, an old women in a red fleece bathrobe over her clothes and wearing slippers came out of a house looking onto the church and approached us. She asked if we would like some wine. We of course said yes. And I assumed we would pay for two glasses. She brought out half'-bottle of green glass with no label and one some drinking glass. She poured the wine and explained that she made in her basement. It was 5 years old and had won a gold medal in Madrid at a wine tasting. It was delicious. I asked if we could pay, but she said no. Then we ended up chatting about the time she did the Camino, she was 80 years old and had been born in the village. She said everyone worked in Pamplona and it was only 15 minutes by car -- they kept an apt in the town and were here in the village on the weekends. We told her how lovely the homes were nonetheless -- they all had lush window boxes and containers of geraniums and other plants. She laughed and said this was nothing -- everything was dead now, we should see it in the summer! Sra. Teresa was a delight. We thanked her for the wine and headed out -- then I quickly went back and asked for her address thinking I could write her a thanks note. She carefully wrote her name and address in my journal and smiled. So off we went -- then suddenly we heard this sound like "tsk, tsk, tsk." We turned and there was Sra. Teresa with the wine bottle insisting we take it with us for the trip! Ah, the Camino is full of such incredible moments!

As walked out of town, we were suddenly on ancient cobblestones -- the Via Traiana -- the Roman road! And we walked on through fields and garden with grapes, figus, and asparagus. Suddenly no sheep or cows -- and few other pilgrims. The landscape became treeless and there was no shelter from the north wind that came up.

Then there were olive trees and we happened on the church described in our bok -- built in 1062 -- before the Norman Conquest!

More later!