May 18, 2025
Lorca to Torres del Rio
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I had warned Dave when I researched and booked our inns that the choices on the Camino were pretty random- so many dorms and hostels - and not many nicer places. Casa Nahia was one such flyer. It was a small place in a tiny village and I picked it because it looked new. On the downside it had no restaurant. To get fed, the reviews said you were to take frozen food out of the freezer for dinner. The village did not appear to have any restaurants so we looked forward (?) to frozen pizza for dinner. The reality of staying there turned out so much better - it will be one of our favorite memories from our Spanish riding.
The owner and his dog Dana greeted us last night as we arrived, pretty hot and sweaty from the day’s adventure.
The place feels brand new and is totally set up for peregrinos. Our room was perfect for us, appointed with nice linens. There were several tables, outlets on both sides of the bed, a tv with headphones which are used to keep the noise down. The Casa is billed as a quiet house - so I guess no parties. No tub but a really good shower and a Spanish version of the Toto washlet for the toilet! We think they have 5 rooms, with maybe three having been booked.
What’s different is the food set-up. There is a large pleasant kitchen and every room has an assigned table. You can take beer, wine, drinks, snacks and frozen food out of the kitchen fridge and mark it on your honor bar sheet. Each room has its own fridge and the owner puts breakfast items and water in the fridge for you to take out when it’s convenient for you. The house also has a small menu of home made food that you can select. Dave had white bean stew and I had a large fresh salad; both came with bread, coffee, water, and they were delicious, along with 2 euros/glass wine which you pour from a decent boxed wine. Our host served the meals and we had a nice visit with the couple at the next table. He was from Madrid and his wife from Ecuador and they were walking the Camino in three chunks. This was their second chunk and they plan to do the final middle leg in September.
People really get into the process of walking the Camino and it’s fun to hear how they do it. (A bit like bike touring. I am sure there are Camino sites that share the lurid details just like Cycleblaze.) In Japan we hiked the Kumano Kodo trail where we learned that the Kumano Kodo trail is the sister pilgrimage trail to the Camino and there were many t-shirts and hats and some special ceremonies celebrating those people who had completed both.
The best part of the Casa Nahia was the bike garage. It was large, immaculate, well organized and complete with all the tools needed for any mechanical needs. Dave did some work on the bikes, including cleaning the drive trains which were filthy, and checking our tire pressure. The owner was a cyclist and you could tell in his love for the bike garage. We think the owner was a bit OCD in his organization - but it worked for us!
I spent the morning after breakfast doing reservations. I had not booked out our hotels for our week in the Rioja region, thinking there were plenty of options and its still the slow season . That came back to bite me as it turned out. I had been thinking we would spend two nights in Haro but the place I had been eyeing as the best option had a room for only one of the nights. As a result we are staying two nights in LaGuardia instead, the downside being LaGuardia does not have a laundromat. Sorry Dave. Before the trip I had mapped out the tentative daily rides, but I had not flyspecked them. I realized when I went to look at them again that it wasn’t possible to stay in Vitoria-Gasteiz AND ride the famous pass up to Orduña in the time we had available. And Orduña only had one decent hotel which was sold out on booking.com, and the Spanish site that advertised availability was at twice the cost of what had been advertised.
So, the above is a long-winded way of saying that this recent experience exposes the downside in our “booking as we go” approach. I managed to find places to stay but I am having to change our route. We also may wear dirty clothes for a few extra days. First world issues.
Back to the day: we left about 11:30 am and rode a lot of gravel to the town of Torres del Rio. We had identified the gravel as an issue in the morning and tried to anticipate a few places where we had a road option in case the gravel didn’t look great. It was so nice in the morning and we felt fresh so that we rode some really nice gravel before the town of Ayegui. There were many pilgrims out on the trail. Eurovelo 3 has done a ton of work and the signage was very good. We had one bad spot where I had to pick my way down (pushing my bike) which stunk because my right knee is still bothering me and the downward walking movement is the most aggravating.
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We stopped at a bench in Azgueta for lunch - another ham sandwich (what else is new), and enjoyed the view of the Castello de San Esteban de Deyo o de Montjardin. We also branched out and ate some more of the chocolate bar we have had since Munich - 3 weeks ago. I told Dave if we finished the bar we would need to invest in some emergency rations as that bar of cheap chocolate was serving as our emergency food cache.
I checked google to see what I could find out about the history of the Castello but could find nothing of interest other than it’s supposed to be a great hike to get up to it.
The scenery here is spectacular and is showing off well after a wet spring and the current wonderful weather. Right after the town of Los Arcos (which was hopping on a Sunday afternoon) we had a choice of gravel or road and we opted for gravel. We were so happy we did. There is gravel, and then there is gravel. And this was the awesome kind of gravel for Jill’s taste. It was a well-maintained road for 8 km with enough width so we could pass walking pilgrims without too much inconvenience (for them or us) and the wildflowers were just stunning. Plus, we were out on a ridge so could see wide open vistas the whole way. The elevation changes were modest and not fear-inducing for this timid 65 year old rider. It was a magical half hour: why we tour.
Our destination was the Hostal San Andrés in the tiny town of Torres del Rio. I booked this place a long time ago - it looked like the only place in town that had individual rooms rather than dorm rooms, although it also had a wing for dorm beds, which we never saw. It also got decidedly mixed reviews (dirty showers, a factory for pilgrims, rude staff), so of all of our more obscure choices this was the one I was most concerned about.
Indeed, our experience was that IT IS a factory for pilgrims. The lady at the front desk informed us we had to agree to dinner right then and there promptly at 7 pm for 15 euros a piece. We would have four choices of starter and four choices of main course and a dessert, all charmingly displayed with pictures of the choices on a laminated card.
I realize I sound snobbish when I write this, it’s just we enjoy the food and wine scene in Europe so much that eating a plate of dried beef and chips dumped in the fryer from Sysco (or whoever is the supplier of Spanish industrially prepared food) is a bummer. On the other hand, it helps with our long term budget. Our friends Mark and Elizabeth, recently arriving off the Camino, warned us of the monotony of the “Camino cuisine.” This ones for you two:
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2 weeks ago
And on the other hand, I had booked the room so long ago I had forgotten what I had reserved, and we laughed hilariously when we walked in and saw this super mondo spa tub:
Besides being overwhelmed with the spa bath, the room was reasonably nice. One advantage of the mundane dinner was that we didn’t linger over a fine bottle of wine and had time to watch the “strade bianche” stage of the Giro after dinner. Dave is getting good about figuring out casting from his tablet and it works out for us about 60 percent of the time.
Today's ride: 36 km (22 miles)
Total: 777 km (483 miles)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 4 |
We know how to cast - we are just wondering what you are able to cast. We leave in 10 days for Barcelona. Jacinto is debating leaving his iPad at home, if it isn't any good to watch movies.
2 weeks ago
This technique works only occasionally for streaming services such as Prime Video, Netflix and Peacock. We do not subscribe to HBO, and Max so are unsure of their rules. These services have pretty strict copyright protections on their content, and unless it’s licensed for broadcast in Europe, they will not stream it, even if I’m using a VPN tunnel to say I’m in the US. They’re pretty sophisticated about figuring out if you’re trying to use a VPN.
Netflix has a function that will show you which content is available for your location and that will be a subset of its catalog. Same holds for Prime and Peacock. I know this doesn’t actually help you know what you can see where. It’s a bit of a crap shoot, I’m afraid and we’re often frustrated.
From Jill: So, if you are willing to accept only watching on your tablet you may be able to get some Amazon and Netflix films as Dave reported above, but many are blocked due to copyright. As to casting, without the fancy cable Dave described that attaches to the tv we would not be able to cast. He is a tech guy so this is feasible option but I could never figure it out myself, so if you guys are not techies the cable option probably isn’t feasible. Sometimes it takes him 20 minutes to find the right port on the back of the tv and then there is still some fussing around!
We are on our way to Ireland and then the UK and the Tour de France will be on when we are in the UK. Not sure what we will do since Peacock has the rights to broadcast that and we expect it can figure out we are actually in the US and will block us, even with the VPN. We may cave and just subscribe to a British streaming service for the duration.
Sorry this ins’t a more encouraging response. It’s pretty crazy there is not a universal way to deal with this stuff. Good luck.
2 weeks ago
1 day ago