Puente Le Reina

September 26, 2023

We received a puzzling email from Susan this morning: “A Wordle shout-out to Team Anderson”. Cryptic, even knowing that she and I are both habitual Wordle players. I puzzle over it a while, wondering if somehow she’s able to see my results and was congratulating me because I’ve really been on a streak for the last two weeks, the best I’ve ever done. I open up the game (included in the NYT) to see if there was a subscriber search function I’d missed, but then see what she meant:

Rocky brings me luck! It’s a pretty rare day when I guess the word in two tries.

In an abundance of caution I mapped a very short ride for today in planning out this tour: only. 14 miles, not much more than a walk by Rocky’s standards. I don’t recall why now, other than that I wanted to see the Queen’s Bridge and biking through to the next night’s lodging in Olite felt on the long side. What if the weather’s terrible? What if I’m having health issues?

Neither of those negatives is burdening us this morning though. The weather is brilliant again if trending toward the warm side of the comfort band; and my health has been surprisingly stable. So I come up with a trio of longer alternatives for Rachael to consider and she opts for a horseshoe loop to the south. We’re on the road by the usual hour, biking south and backtracking the last few busy miles we rode in on yesterday.

Leaving Estella, just as the daily mail arrives.

Estella sprawls out to the south where the open land is, and it takes us about five miles before we’ve escaped it and the traffic abates. After that it lessens steadily with each mile, and eventually we find ourselves in an open landscape with wide views that carries us all the way to Lerín, where our horseshoe bends and turns back northward again. There’s still more traffic than we really care for because we’re on one of the main provincial highways south to the Ebro, but there’s a generous shoulder the whole way.

Southbound on the NA-122. No wind, no rain, an abundant shoulder, and little enough traffic that it works for us.

Dicastillo passes by our shoulder on the right. Dicastillo, Carcastillo, Uncastillo - there’s a whole collection of like-named towns in the region.

A clear day gives us good views back to the heights of the Basque Country.

Fifteen miles into the ride and Lerín comes into view ahead. It’s too bad the lighting is poor because it makes a striking sight positioned precariously atop a deeply eroded sandy point.

Once we left greater Estella it’s been easy riding the whole way, the contour limited to low rollers. That changes when we come to our turnoff at Lerín and we’re suddenly on a steep climb that slows us down considerably and tops out at 13%. As compensation, we’re suddenly on a much quieter road and in the shade of the ridge Lerín sits upon so we’re out of the sun that was starting to feel oppressive.

Rachael pulls ahead and plows her way to the top in one go, but I pull off halfway up at a roadside attraction that interests me, nearly taking a spill when I leave the road for the soft sand beside it. It’s an interesting site, worth the stop even if it hadn’t given me a break from the climb.

The Cuevas del Barranco del Paredón, one of a cluster of cave sites near here. These were used as housing in the distant past.

Once on top we enjoy a beautiful, quiet ride north to Puente le Reina, the last ten miles of the way generally following the Arga river north toward the hills. It’s very open and arid country, almost desert-like. Rachael observes at one point that it reminds her of some of the country around Borrego Springs.

In spite of all the wind generators around, it’s a still day today. The utilities aren’t getting any return on their investment at the moment.

That’s Larraga ahead. At first I found these distant sky villages appealing until I realized each one comes with a climb.

No one’s lived here for quite some time, from the looks of it.

Some swallows, hundreds of them. I wonder what the chances are I can zoom in enough to identify them?

#199: Western house martin. These guys are roosting way up on the top ledge of the tower. I wasn’t hopeful about being able to identify them, but was lucky to catch a shot with both of their key features: the white breast and rump.

Worth stopping for. I’m anxious to see what this looks like on the video Rachael’s been capturing.

Finally nearing Laggara, the town in the distance we’ve been staring at for awhile.

The camera and I have lagged behind Rachael as usual, but not so far that I can’t still see her taillight about a half mile ahead. She waits for me at the top of the climb in Laggara when she finally finds some shade, and when I catch up to her I take some time there to hydrate, sit for a few moments, and check my heart rate. It’s hot and getting windy, conditions that are known to trigger an event, but I’m fine this time.

Starting down the north side of Laggara Rachael wakes up her GoPro to snag some decent descent footage, but not three blocks into it I abruptly stop for a mural I don’t want to pass by. This elicits some foul language from Rocky, who feels she wasn’t given adequate warning.

In Laggara, a village with a few surprises.

Another descent, another hilltop ahead, another climb. It’s getting warm enough that we’re both tired of this pattern and wish we’d gotten an earlier jump on the day by the time Puente le Reina finally comes into view. A few minutes later we’re sitting in the shade at a cafe almost next door to our hotel, watching the procession of perigrinos straggling in and waiting for our menu del dia to appear.

Will no one rid us of these meddlesome hill towns? This one’s Mendigorria.

I had to sprint a bit to position myself to capture Rocky in the foreground. I hope you think it was worth the added effort.

Video sound track: Adonde Fue Cecilia?, by Kany García

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I keep saying I’m going to come back and post separately photos of the more interesting towns we’re staying at. I said that about Vitoria and I said that about Estella but neither has happened so far. I think I need to just include these photos with the main post so I don’t let it slip, even if I don’t invest much time on them.

Puente la Reina is an interesting little place, with more to see than I’d anticipated. I really enjoyed walking around here more than in Estella. I didn’t allow much time (but more than Rachael, who’s staying off her feet because she has a bruised toe and a worrisome sore throat), only going out about 6:30 because I was waiting for the day to cool down. My main goal was to see the famous bridge, which Queen Doña Mayor had built (hence the Queen’s Bridge) in the eleven hundreds to enable pilgrims to cross the River Arga. The bridge is definitely worth a look but there are a pair of impressive churches too, as well as evocative lanes lined with one impressive door after another.