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Good morning !! I bet you’re thinking I’ve finally lost it ….well, maybe I have a bit, but the title of this blog is to prove a point about signs ! Before I get on my high horse though ..let me keep you up to speed with where we are now !

We left Logroño in good time this morning …

The route out of the city was stunning .. beautiful well maintained parks …constantly watered so all grass and foliage was green ( the irony was not lost on me that in the UK , an island surrounded by water, we are all under a hosepipe ban …yet Spain prone to severe droughts seems to manage it’s water supplies a little better 🙈🙈)

Now let me introduce you to the wildlife we met along the way ..,

We arrived at our first stop in very good time ….10.30 am …

However, those of you who’ve followed us before, will know that each day of walking, after about 2-3 hours we have a coffee and a snack. Alas today the first bar we came across was on our arrival here 🥴🥴

Then you will remember we allow ourselves a cold beer when we are within 30 minutes of our destination! Well that went to pot🙄🙄 …and neither of us felt we could have a beer at 11 am …. why you ask ? Look, it could have been a long afternoon so we needed to pace ourselves !. However, as I write, I see it is nearly midday …. hooray bring on the 🍻🍻

Cheers one and all …..and the plant next to us ???Rosemary or Romero of course 😘

The hotel we are staying in is built around the original Camino path….

This just gives you an idea of what the “ path” looks like in places!!!

Okay, now back to the beginning ….so what is the title of this blog all about ? Yesterday do you remember I left you with a conundrum ….

What do these signs mean ?

Excuse me …but what is there in that “picture” ( and I call it a picture loosely uou understand ) that tells you it is a man’s toilet …answers on a post card please . I mean it doesn’t even resemble the male anatomy ….or should I have gone to Specsavers??? ( for those of you not familiar with Specsavers , they are a well known chain of opticians ) …so what is it about that sign that says “ Men, enter here”

I watched one bloke walking from this door to the other door completely befuddled…after three attempts to work it out he resorted to asking the waitress …and in case you’re wondering how I knew it was the men’s toilets, it’s because I watched him being directed there!!!!

What can I say …what have we here …..again what on earth is it about this picture that says “ Ladies Toilet”?We have an upside down man in the first diagram ( and I may be many things but an inverted man I am not !!!) and I’d have said a cat at the end …I daren’t hazards a guess at what is in the middle 🥴🥴🥴

Why can we not have universally recognisable male and female pictures on doors ? It would be so much more helpful …and don’t start with “ what about transgender toilets” because surely whatever your gender, you would use the relevant toilet? 🤔 Just saying !

The DB had an unfortunate incident with a toilet relating to signage, in Brighton several years ago . Let me set the scene…it wasn’t long after Covid restrictions were lifted…and the bar we went to on the sea front had one way in and one way out . So the DB went in to order and pay for 2 gin and tonics ( 😂 back to that theme again 😉) …well, he didn’t reappear straight away . In fact the drinks appeared before he did .

So when he finally got back he looked a little flustered …”where have you been?” I asked

“Well, I went to the loo.”

“And what took you so long?“ said I ( slightly cautiously at this point🥴🥴)

“ I asked the man behind the bar where the men’s loo was, and he said it was up the stairs and along the corridor at the end… but it wasn’t. So I had to go all the way back down and ask again”

“ Crikey …where was it ?”

“ Up the stairs and along the corridor at the end!”

No wonder he couldn’t find it …I mean at least the first diagram suggests a women , but as he said at the time what is the second diagram meant to mean ? As for the third …a friend of ours suggested it was where you did the washing up 🙄🙄🤣🤣

So what I am saying is …signs really need to say what they mean . Now the Camino Frances, which is the Camino we are walking, is well signed . We left our hotel this morning and followed these signs out of Logroño…

Perfectly clear signage …giving us perfectly clear instructions to follow …some folk could learn a lesson or two from these me thinks 😉😉

Now comes a cautionary tale…ok another one 🙄🙄 but this story bothered both Kathleen and I . Last evening, when we were sipping (😉😉) our small gin and tonics , two American ladies ( obviously walking the Camino) sat down at the table behind us . One of the ladies couldn’t speak and looked completely traumatised…and the other hid her trauma well . It transpires that they had left the USA to “ Walk the Camino Frances” 7 days ago and had given themselves until 21 st October to complete it . However, it became clear they had done very little research on what it was like …thinking mistakenly it wasn’t a hike of trek, rather a walk 🙈🙈🙈. On arrival in St Jean Pied de Port where the Camino commences, they visited the Pilgrim Office and were given the following sheet of paper…

They followed it to the T …and as they were staying in Hostels ( which fill up very quickly with the Speedy Gonzales’ we see whizz past us every day) … on several occasions they had had to extend the already long day’s walk to find somewhere to stay as everywhere was fully booked! No wondering they weren’t enjoying the experience …and were completely deflated in spirit .

Fortunately help and advice were at hand ….you’ve guessed it !!!….from ours truly …and we told them to pace themselves …use the Pilgrim Office and” map” as a guide not an instruction ..and I’m delighted to say, we met up with them earlier, and Debbie who had looked shell- shocked last evening was unrecognisable and Julie totally relaxed . They are staying here in Navarette tonight thank goodness!

The moral of this tale is that if you are going to take on a “walk” that takes a minimum of 5 weeks to complete and you are doing it unsupported ( unlike Kathleen and I who are doing it supported by a company called Walk the Camino) …please do your research .. They completely ignored the 6 P’s …Perfect Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!!!!

And so to the end of the day …..of course that involves a customary ( and rather large) gin and tonic in the town square ! On our way home we called in to the very imposing church…

It was built in the 16 th Century … of all the sections of Camino we have walked the alter has to have been the most amazing ( obviously excluding the cathedral in Santiago de Compostella 🙄🙄) I mean, look at this for ornate …..

This is a church in a small town …2,900 inhabitants…..the statues amongst the gold work were life size . It speaks volumes about religion and its history in Spain!

Then it’s back to the hotel for an early night ( and a speedy prayer that the church bells don’t chime throughout the night 🙏🙏Tomorrow we walk 10.9 miles to Najera and it seems we start off with a very cheeky little hill!

With that Dear Reader, I bid you Good Night but leave you with this for a chuckle …