Day 6 - Sunday, 27th April, 2014 - 23.4 km
[Eunate church at the end of the Camino Aragones]
[Eunate church - detail]
[Eila - Walking to Puente la Reina]
This morning Eila and I decided to go slightly 'off piste' to visit a small very old church at Eunate, which is just off the Camino route, but demands a 2-3 kilometre detour. I lead off on slightly the wrong road, which meant that we had to negotiate the muddy sides of various fields, which made our boots very heavy, but we eventually corrected our route to visit the church and take a short break there before continuing back to the Camino at Obanos. Later in the morning we walked into Puente la Reina and bumped into Margaret and Aine, who had finished their Camino and were about to return to Ireland via San Sebastian and Biarritz. It was good to see them before they left and see that they had made it to the point they had planned.
[Sunday Mass - Puente la Reina]
As we continued down the Main Street we were just in time for Sunday Mass, which had only just started. So often churches are in darkness and when a Mass is on, the whole church is fully lit, which fully shows off the amazing use of gold everywhere.
[Bridge - Puente la Reina]
[Roman road leading away from Cirauqui]
After Puente la Reina we pushed on for the village of Lorca passing through two other hilltop villages on the way (Maneru and Cirauqui). Cirauqui was interesting because as we climbed up through the town I could hear what was the unmistakeable sound of a bee swarm and we looked up just below the church tower to see a great cloud of bees swarming around the roofs there with birds swooping through and braving the cloud to pick off the odd honey filled treat! As you leave Cirauqui you are on very old Roman road, which leads down the hill out of the town and over an old Roman bridge. As Eila noted, chariots would find the going a bit tough now, as we did, because the unattended surface was extremely uneven, but you can't help being effected with the sense of history when you walk on such an old surface.
Eila pulls my leg because I have to photograph bridges, wherever we go, but they are splendid!
Buen Camino.
[Medieval bridge just before Lorca]
[Motorway tunnel before Lorca]
