Day 3. (Day 40). May 3, 2015. Orio to Deba. 36 kms

If the Dons sight Devon,

I'll quit the port o' heaven

And drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago

I was one of the early risers this morning, poking around beside my bunk to make sure I'd left nothing behind, trying not to wake anyone. I walked down the steep hill into the town where I found a cafe/bakery open for breakfast. I find that the Spanish croissants are heavier and stickier than the French ones. As I type this, I'm getting the iPad quite sticky. I hope it's not coming through at your end.

Then down to the harbour, across a bridge, and along the other side of the river towards the sea, keeping pace with the outgoing tide. Then up a couple of hundred feet, vines on the slope on either side, over the headland and down again to the seaside town of Zarautz, gorze and broom in full flower up the slope to my left, and the open sea on my right, a tiny little sailboat in the offing.

Another coffee, a cafe con leche this time, and then what must be one of the most delightful promenades of all, stretching all the way along the sea wall from Zarautz to Cetaria for five kilometres or more. A lone kayaker, a sailboat or two, and several rowing crews, always accompanied by a coach in a motor boat, for safety's sake as much as anything, I imagine, for if you caught a crab and capsized, you wouldn't last long in the cold sea. And yet, in the water just before Cetaria was a swimmer, paddling lazily, not splashing madly in a hurry to get out. And a young woman, tracing on the sand, Zana 💛 --,  but I never did find out whom. And aways the dogs on the beach, racing after the stick, returning it, and then facing the big dilemma of whether to hang on to it and be chased or to give it up and fetch it again. 

After Cetaria, it was up over the hills, into wine country again, with the sour smell from empty barrels coming from a winery somewhere. And always on the right the open sea, the Bay of Biscay, where Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey and Nelson and Drake kept the French and Spaniards at bay.

I sat  down on a bench in a public square in the next town of Zumaria, and suddenly the exodus from mass flowed through the square. This was no dwindling congregation. Little girls in white dresses for their first communion, and a tiny baby in arms for a Christening, but why were the little boys wearing smart little navy uniforms with braid on their sleeves and epaulettes on their shoulders? Here a lieutenant, there a captain, there a petty officer. Who were they? I found out later that this was the boys' dress for their first communion.

And then began the last stretch. Up 500 feet, then down again, up and down, up and down, along the road and then a rocky path, finally reaching 750 feet before descending rapidly into the coastal town of Ceda. A brutal final stretch! How many Mount Dougs I climbed today! I am staying tonight in a converted railway station. Trains still stop at the station down below, but the several floors above have been converted into a comfortable alberge.