Sunday 1 September

We are up early so we can be at breakfast at or before 7.30am. Irene the Tour Leader, wants us to leave at 8.00am so a quick meal and we check out with our big cases. A 350m walk to the metro is a bit noisy with the wheels on the tiled pavement but we are on the platform for the R2 train which is a special airport service. Good for us, it stops at the main train station at Sand. Our luggage is scanned by security, but not us. The Renfe Avenida train (known as AVE high Speed service) is comfortable and has shared video entertainment and a snack trolley. We leave on time for the nearly 4 hour trip.

We pass through wide flat or undulating largely agricultural land that looks mostly dry. Some is irrigated, most not. Cropping (maize, sun flower) and horticulture, with some olives and vines looks to be the main use. Plus they grow wind turbines in a huge way. Evidently Navarra is quite a windy part of the country.

We arrive at 1.15pm and trundle another 400m to reach Hotel Pamplona Plaza, which is 3 star, has a lift, and the room is bigger than in Barcelona. After check-in we head for the old walled city that is the location for the well-known "Running of the Bulls" in July each year. The city is reached by a free public funicular rail lift up the ~60m cliff next to the river. Until 1915 the city was restricted by law so that development outside the wall was prohibited. As a result the city buildings are up to 6 storeys high and the streets narrow and winding. Don't get lost!

We take in the odd church, town hall, cathedral, monument, many plazas, plus the best eating places. We stop for a quick tapas which in the Basque region is known as a pintxo (Basque version of pincho) at La Estafeta. The derivation and difference from tapa is that the food is pierced by a toothpick to keep it on the bread slice underneath.

Back to the hotel for a rest and then by 8.00pm we are back in the old city and promptly find ourselves not in the main plaza but in the park on the other side of town. Oops. Consult map and we are good. We eat at Mercado Baserri Berri in the Calle de San Nicolas like the locals and try some more pintxos with cervesa and vino blanco de casa. We finish the evening sitting on a bench in the Plaza del Castillo in the evening light, eating ice cream from Larramendi, the best ice cream in town that costs €2.20 for a big scoop.