27 September Cool and sunny. Morning quite cool, almost cold

Hilly ride to this small town which appears to be a commuting village for Pamplona. Now descending (with a number of challenging ascents) the Spanish foothills. Pamplona is close at about 22 km away. The only distinguishing feature of this town is the Roman bridge. Supposedly walking over the bridge three times (method used until the early 20th century) prevented rabies in animals. Many cows have crossed.

Still working on traveling Spanish. Able to get the food asked for, mostly as well as the common usage word for password: clave. Several other words have been suggested to me but the person who gave me this word seemed to be an IT guy.

Met a Juan Viñas from Santiago. He was biking the trail, the actual trail. Very difficult. Took the train to Roncesvalles and is now biking home. Nice conversation ended with him suggesting we call him when we arrive in Santiago. He will show us the non-tourist part of the city. He works very close to the hotel we are at, the Parador. His business is building hotels so he knows the manager.

Pamplona (also called Iruña ) will be, at 200K population, by far the largest city so far on the adventure; none have even reached 10K and many not even 1K.