The Wine and Fish Trail

 IF WHEN READING THESE BLOGS, YOU GET TO APOINT THAT THE LATEST BLOG WONT SHOW, LOOK JUST BELOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN, AND CLICK ON “MORE POSTS” Well, this has been one of my toughest years, and I’ve had one or two in my life. Whilst getting ready to walk the Camino Norte, and only two weeks away from starting, I found out that although I had no pain, I found out that both my knees were shot and had to be replaced. Stage one,,, find the surgeon with the best reputation (mistake one ), get surgery (mistake two) To cut a long story short, I’ve had 5 knees by two surgeons in 12 months, have not played any sports activity for about 18 months and I’m losing my mind. Never the less, I feel like I’m ready to gamble a bit and see if I can do this walk of 103 miles in 7 days through northern Spain. If you I’ve seen an X-ray of a new knee, its a small titanium cap on the end of each leg bone, after all the nonsense, these are mine And you know what’s so sad, they don’t set off the meta...

 Long flight but Spain is as welcoming as usual, was going to spend the night in Madrid and meet up with Bill and Patty at the main rail station tomorrow morning four our about 3.5 hour train ride up to Legronio which is close to Oyon where we start Getting through customs was a timely challenge, and this was the first of two rooms we had to go through, 1.5 hours in line Turns out the trains are booked up and after two stations and miles on our feet, we had to settle for a late night rail tonight, got to Legrono at midnight, found our hotel and crashed. Someone is looking over us from above I think, Bill called to say he couldn’t find accommodation in Legronio, then he called back with good and bad news, I said “give me the bad first”, he said we have rooms downtown but if going to cost us 770 euros for the night for the four of us, Holy crap, that’s high for Spain, “good news” I asked, turns out that rooms are in very high demand because we arrive at the start of the annual Spanis...

 20/09/2025 Woke up this morning feeling refreshed, yesterday was a hell day on the road and I’m proud of how Kim held up, not that I doubted her at all Grabbed our stuff and headed to our new hotel for the night to drop off our bags, turns out they had a room ready and we could move in, the travel gods are being kind today Well;;;;;;;; it’s the San Mateo wine festival and we arrived just in time,, or they would have missed us. The Spanish know how to party, the young ones too, except they don’t know when to stop.  The streets are a slow graceful and rhythmic moving horde of people, all having fun, and breakfast hasn’t been served yet, now that I know wine isn’t just for breakfast anymore, I decided to join in.. after all I am here for a good time. Kims first taste on a “coffee con letche” Coffee and an array of Pinchos Smoked salmon and cream cheese pincho, and a beer, life is looking up. Kim had her first “coffee con letche”, and is hooked on the coffee, closely followed by ...

 9/20/25 Bill and Patty flew in too late to get the train to Legronio, so they rented a car and drove the hours it took to get here just in time to celebrate the San Mateo wine festival We went back out on the town and headed straight to a bar that had food, something we all needed by this time.’walked around for a few hours watching the mayhem till the girls got tired and went to bed, after all, it gets real tomorrow. bill and I stayed out another hour or so, tried a few local spots then went home to get ready to start the walk tomorrow

 9/21/25 We all woke up this morning feeling a little fragile, must have had something to do with last night, never the less, it was time to walk We headed to Oyon were the trail officially starts and headed out towards to mountain It was a cool , blustery day , with a hint of rain in the air.  As it turned out, that was perfect for a day one hike, as we stayed cool most of the day. This is NO Camino, that’s for sure. I’ve been spoiled with all the casinos as there is always a coffee/pastry shop every hour or two, on this trail, no such luck. I wasn’t carrying enough liquids for the long haul and all the hills, I’ll know better tomorrow. Hulooooo We climbed through vineyard after vineyard as we headed into the mountains, but most of the trail was on secondary roads, I love walking the single tracks more, but these roads were so quiet, hardly ever encountered a car or bike all day. Bill couldn’t wait for them to harvest the crop Was unusual tp see grapes on the vine as its late...