This morning I had two options – 1. A brisk 300m climb straight after leaving the bells of Zarautz

or 2. follow the coastal road. I have to confess that I chose option 2 but I still had 650m of climbing to do later in tbe day.

Looking back at Zaurutz
Fishing boats coming home after a night’s fishing.

The seawall along the road had some very impressive blocks cut from stone.

The ancient Basque language, unrelated to any other, is still very strong here.

The camino today was mainly a few kilometres inland from the sea through farming country.

This man was using a scythe to cut grass, but he didn’t want to be in a photo.

I fell in with a group of 4 guys from Madrid for a few hours, giving my Spanish another work out.

We passed through the little port of Getaria where an explorer famous in Spain at least was born.

Juan Elkano took over the first circumnavigation of the world after Magellan was killed in the Phillipines.

The blue and white flags I think are of the local football team.

There was a Citroen 2CV rally passing through.

I’ve seen a lot of nice old wooden boats in the little ports.

A bit later in the day I walked for a while with Victoria from Tasmania and we picked berries and figs along the way.

Another little town along the way was Zumaia.

Here are some more photos I took through the day.

There were more hydrangeas today as well as lots of small wild flowers.

and nasturtiums.

I still haven’t tried that Basque wine.

I walked the last few hours by myself as the others were either too fast or too slow for me and after around 5 hours I was almost at Deba.

The church of Santa Maria in Deba was financed by the export of wool to England and Flanders in tbe 13th century. The portal still has some of the original colouring.

The albergue is pretty much full tonight. It has a centrifugal spin dryer wwhich us very handy. Hopefully my wollen socks will dry!

Its located in part of the old railway station. I hope there aren’t too many night trains.

It’s raining this evening but hopefully tomorrow will be dry, if muddy. The camininheafs inland through farming country with more climbing!