We woke in Zubiri to an email from our travel company advising of a severe travel warning—the tail end of a hurricane was sending high winds and rain across Spain and France. The forecast was for fine weather from 8 am – 12 pm so we got started and walked fairly quickly without a break to Pamplona.

As we entered Pamplona, the wind picked up, and it rained a little bit. It felt like we were walking through the town for quite a while until we finally came to the 12-century Magdalena Bridge and, from there, walked up the ramp and through the Portal Francia. Pamplona was originally three neighbouring (and often warring) towns that were “encouraged” to unite in the 14th century when the walls were built around them for protection. The Portal Francia is the only gate that stands in its original position and has been used by pilgrims on the Frances Way for centuries.

It was too early to check into our hotel, so we found a lovely bakery and got some lunch (a tortilla and a cake). We settled into the warmth and watched the showers outside. I’d booked a four-hour walking and food tour starting at 5:30 p.m., so as soon as we got into our hotel, we had showers and hopped into bed for a nap. Getting up, we put on our warmish clothes, including our waterproof jackets and went down to meet the guide at the front of our hotel. Our first stop was the Pamplona Town Hall, where we learned all about the city’s history. The Basque people were the first settlers. They founded Iruna, which means the city in Basque. My earlier curiosity about the Basque language was partially satisfied—our guide confirmed it is a non-Indo-European language, but no one knows its origins, and it doesn’t fit into any other language families.

After admiring the town hall and learning about its history, we walked down to where the running of the bulls started each year and learned all about the festival. The only thing I knew about the festival was the short TV grabs I’d seen on the nighttime news. The history and the traditions around it are fascinating. We also saw the bullring and all the holes in the streets where the barricades are slotted each year. Everywhere you go, there are running of the bulls souvenirs. One shop even has a countdown until the next running of the bulls. There were 269 days to go when we were there.

Around this time, the heavens opened and drenched everything with a massive downpour. The wind was so strong it blew the top of our guide’s umbrella off, leaving her holding the handle of a metal stick. As we watched it fly high up level with the tops of the buildings and stay up, I wondered whether it would be lost forever. Eventually, it floated down, and the guide ran 50 m down the street to retrieve it. We were happy with our choice to wear our raincoats. They did not blow away in the wind.

After our history tour, we went bar hopping and visited three bars to try various Pintxos and wine. Pintxos are the Basque version of bar snacks. We tried more traditional pintxos at Zanpa, the first bar we went to—marinated peppers and txistorra sausage with bread. The next two bars featured more adventurous pintxos. It would be amazing to visit during the Navarre Pintxos week, when over 100 bars in Navarre compete over ten days to make the best haute cuisine pintxos. These are the bars and the pintxos we had:

• Iruñazarra 
  • Iruñanguilazarra: Crunchy quinoa, guacamole, smoked eel, seaweed pearls.
  • Irati: Venison inside fried pastry topped with three different toppings. It is eaten in three bites—one for each topping. The first bite had leek and potato puree, the second bite had ozmotized collard greens and microchard, and the third bite was a rosehip, strawberry, and chanterelle concoction.
• Baserriberri
  • Resandwich: Oxtail sandwich with Kalimotxo, spicy and sour chutney. All flambéed with absinthe.
  • Boombeja: Smoked sheep’s milk bread with truffled lactonese and Thai-style lamb

By the next morning, the rain had stopped, and we even had some blue sky peak through the clouds. We had a little bit of time to explore before catching our 1:30 pm train. We enjoyed walking through the streets, noticing the little details, and getting a bit more understanding of what we were seeing after our tour the previous night. Since space was at a premium within the walled cities, when people needed more housing, they built up, and so you can see the buildings where additional stories have been added, not always blending in. We stopped for a hot chocolate at the historic Cafe Iruna, established in 1888 and a favourite of Ernest Hemingway.

We also went to the Pamplona Cathedral. The current Gothic Cathedral sits on the site of three earlier churches and the ruins of Roman Pompaelo. The Cloisters were beautiful. Inside the church is the tomb of Charles III of Navarre and Queen Eleanor of Castille. There is an attached museum that houses Roman artifacts and sacred art.

The stats from G’s Garmin for the Pamplona to Zubiri leg of the Camino: Distance – 20.72 km; Total Elevation Gain – 526 m; Moving Time: 4:26:06.

And off my Garmin for that day: Steps – 36,053.

Do you enjoy making a meal of small snacks?