Yes, another day off the bikes. Let’s look at this like a flywheel gathering speed. We got things moving yesterday, and the momentum will continue. However, we’ve never been to Pamplona before, and in all likelihood, won’t be again, so it deserved a little attention.
It was another beautiful day and we set off at about 10, early for Spain it seems, for an exploration around the compact centre. Our only real goals were to see the Catedral Pamplona (which is literally a stones throw from our hotel) and to check out the central town to see where they run the bulls.
Surprisingly, we spent an inordinate amount of time in the cathedral. Normally we spend 30 - 40 minutes in these places, with most of that time spent by me taking pictures of obscure stuff that interests me, and probably no one else. The last 20 minutes of these ventures usually find K sitting on a bench outside contemplating the patterns in the gravel surrounding the bench she’s sitting on.
Today was different though. The Pamplona Catedral had it’s regular ornate chapels, knaves and other bits that I don’t know the names of, but it also had interpretive / historical features that brought the place to life and provided context for everyone. For example, a lot of time has been put into restoration, and telling the story, of the bell keepers. We all hear the bells (largely automated now), but this was a profession in the recent past. There was also a great interpretive section that went through an interactive history of the development of the cathedral, in the context of European / Spanish history. My words don’t do justice as to how well this was done, but K spent 2 hours here … and liked every one of those minutes. Minute 121 was different, pic’s to follow.
The rest of the day was one of our classic street wanders and we finished up with a very simple pasta dinner at an ‘Italian’ restaurant. Sometimes you crave simple, and that was tonight.
Tomorrow we head off to Unconstillo where we will pick up TA’s breadcrumb trail from their 2017 trip.
SOTD - Ahiawa by Hindi Zehra. This has a moorish feel to it, and I realize that the region of Spain we’re in is not Moorish, but I liked it as it played while I typed away.
Great way to start the morning. Fresh fruit market just a few steps away from our hotel.
Now we’re into the more interactive interpretive part of the cathedral. This was actually quite engaging, not sure what a pink doll house means, but it’s certainly different!
There was a ‘historical walk’ with steel floors. There were illuminated cut outs indicating the time of events in the catherdral’s history with appropriate artifacts from that era. This description really does not do justice to the presentation.
