Destination Pamplona, Part 2

September 15
In Irotz, we stop at an outdoor café for lunch with familiar faces.  Paddington and Duck enjoy the company of Alistaire and Anthony from Australia.

We approach Pamplona through its suburbs.  Then we are in the first real city along our route.  The trail is very well marked and we pass a supermercado, where I buy a package of kitty treats.

We follow the path over one of the five medieval bridges in the city, Puente de la Magdalena, to the drawbridge at the Portal de Francia, one of the entrances to the walled-in medieval area.  Here the streets are narrow and winding and bustling with activity in an otherwise surprisingly quiet and closed-down city.

The refugio Jesús y María is in a refurbished nave of a seventeenth-century church.  The magnificent ceilings have been preserved.

The glass floors are kind of freaky, though. 

There are plenty of toilets and showers (coed--yikes!), a kitchen, computer room, and laundry.  With 114 beds, the three washers and two dryers are in high demand.  I will not go into the appalling behavior of supposed pilgrims.  Suffice it to say that I guard our place in the laundry queue and our clothes, even though it means having Jerri and Beth go to dinner and bring something back for me.  I share our dryer with an older Irish gentleman who has only a small bundle of clothes.  I fold the laundry of two young men who ask kindly if I would remove their load so the next person could use the dryer; I catch up on journaling; and I visit with familiar faces who pop in now and then.  Not a bad way to spend a few hours.

Cat count: 16

Land Rover count: 9

Oh, and hon, I found a euro in the grass on the side of the path.  :-)