Deba, tonight's resting place

It's an easy day we thought, it's only 12km we thought, we'll breeze into town at midday and have a relaxing afternoon, we thought. How hard can 12km be ? Well, the first 6km were fine. 

Then we got the narrow, windy,  absolutely beautiful but very long and steep ascent, after a number of gentler but still impressive hills, followed by a long descent to the sea, which is rather hard with a full pack, our knees were screaming by the end.This 6km section took just over 2 1/2 hours, the only saving grace being that everyone we spoke to found them really hard. 

So it wasn't a very hard decision to go for a hotel, rather than the communal living of an albergue. Own shower, own room, luxury ....

This Camino feels very different to the previous Camino, rather than being the life blood of small communities you are one amongst a variety of visitors. We feel very welcomed, and have had some really valuable assistance from people, but you are very much left to get on with your walk. So far, so good with the accomodation, there's been plenty of space and tonight is a definite luxury after a surprisingly hard day. 

This was the easy part !

So different to more southerly parts of Spain, the lushness and meadow flowers remind me more of the Black Forest or alpine meadows. The ringing of cowbells had a distinctly Swiss flavour. We've been so lucky with the weather, often cloudy but that's a welcome relief, some sun, only a very small amount of rain.