Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago: Los Arcos to Viana

Those of you who follow me on Instagram will know that this summer, I spent 9 days walking around 180km along the Camino de Santiago, from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France to Logroño in Spain. I wrote a Q&A post in response to some of the questions people had asked me along the way already but had so many people ask me if I was going to blog about the entire experience that I’ve decided to make this a nine part series over the next 3 months or so. Noone wants to read a recap featuring 100s of photos and 1000s of words and I feel like this might be more helpful for people who are looking for information about the specific stages. This is Part 8 (Parts 1-7 linked at the end of this post).

Camino Frances Day 8: Los Arcos to Viana (approx 18km)

Yay! A day when we were walking under 20km! In fact, we divided this potentially long day into two, leaving a short final day on the Camino for us – one of the reasons we chose to walk with Camino Travel Center in the first place – for the flexibility of splitting our days like this. Also I had briefly read about Viana (the more-than-halfway-point) and thought it might be a nice place to recharge for our final day’s walking… We started the day pretty early, leaving Los Arcos before it got too hot…

Lots of open countryside today…

(who leaves their boots on the road like this? And not old, worn ones… these were practically new!)

Around 8km from Los Arcos is the charming village of Torres del Río…

We stopped in at the Iglesia de Santo Sepulcro, a XII C church linked to the Knights Templar, its hexagonal design being based on the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem.

Today was a really uneventful day in terms of the terrain. There are a few steep sections, though nothing like the previous few days. It was s tranquil day’s walking… There’s not much to see apart from farmland (very few villages to stop in on this leg of the Camino) so it was a day for quiet contemplation.

(one thing I learned along the way here is that there is NO WAY I could bike the Camino…)

You can definitely tell that you are in Rioja country…

And then all of a sudden, we were in Viana…

We were staying at the gorgeous Palacio de Pujadas, right next to this church…

Where we accidentally stumbled upon a wedding setup…

In fact, it felt like the whole town was getting ready to party!

We wandered around during quiet siesta time…

And wandered into this bar, directly out of the 1950s…

We rewarded ourselves with a beer and a snack (and sheltered from the rain) and headed back to repack our bags for the final day’s walk the next day.

We half-heartedly looked at the supermarket snack selection (knowing we didn’t need anything…). It was hard to resist this:

(yes that appears to be bacon crisps!)

Instead, we opted for our pilgrim meal at the ungodly hour – at least in Spain – of 7.30pm. We knew we wanted to start walking early the next day so as to take advantage of Logroño so we wanted to eat early and get a good night’s sleep. It felt like such a treat that the pilgrim meal included this:

Desserts hadn’t been a highlight along the way so a single serve chocolate ice cream was hitting new heights!

We tucked ourselves in bed at the respectable hour of something like 9.30. Hmmm… all those red flags should have been a sign. Also, it was the weekend…

Yup, it was party central that evening (thank goodness for ear plugs!). With the wedding next door and the general fiesta in the town, it was not a night to go  to bed early. Except if you were pilgrims 😉 We were SO tired we just couldn’t muster the energy to go check out the scene. Plus, we had “end of Camino” in sight!

Verdict: Wow, what a difference a few kilometres makes!  Walking under 20km felt like such a breeze and ending up in such a charming town was quite the bonus! Check back in the next two weeks for the final day of our Camino where we walk to Logroño.

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Disclosure: I researched Camino trips independently and chose the Camino Travel Center based on a number of features such as flexibility to accommodate a couple of “splits” in some of the longer days, price and customer service. They were, in fact the first company I came across in my very first Google search and the one I ended up booking with. From the initial inquiry to the actual trip, they were a pleasure to deal with and we were very impressed with the service provided (bag transportation) and the accommodation choices. I was not compensated to write about this trip in any way but I love sharing companies and products I believe in with my readers. I couldn’t recommend the Camino Travel Center more and, in fact, am looking at booking another Camino walk with them in the future.

Read more about the Camino de Santiago:

Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – questions and answers
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 1: Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Valcarlos
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 2: Valcarlos to Roncesvalles
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 3: Roncesvalles to Zubiri
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 4: Zubiri to Pamplona
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 5: Pamplona to Puente la Reina
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 6: Puente la Reina to Estella
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 7: Estella to Los Arcos
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 8: Los Arcos to Viana
Walking (part of) the Camino de Santiago – Day 9: Viana to Logroño