Vintage postcard views of Viana.

[RENSHAW]

Not much has changed in over 100 years as far as the bus station is concerned. My guess is that instead of going through the very top of town , pilgrims would take this route as it was the only main road to Logrono. I doubt weather they visited the Ermita de Cuevas? The second view is at least 60 years later looking back at Viana from that road to Logrono. The top of the tower of the ruins of San Pedro is still there in this photo. I did hear that a small earthquake toppled it after relentless shelling during the Calitz Wars a centuary earlier weakened the structure. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[John Crawford Howell]

Thank you for sharing, Renshaw. On May 1, 2017, I took a photo similar to this looking back at Viana. My journal entry, in part, read ". . .After breakfast in a bar/restaurant across from the 13th century Iglesia Santa Maria where Caesar Borgia is buried, I walked out the old entrance to Viana, and continued on the trail out of town, and down to the valley below toward Logroño. Always so much work to get up the hill only to lose all the elevation gain going down the other side. . ."

 

[AlwynWellington]

... as far as the bus station is concerned ...

@RENSHAW, I have two separate recollections of that bus stop.

The first was in early May 2016. I had pulled some muscles in my hip and was walking wounded, but unfit to walk more than few kilometres any one day. I had boarded a bus at Estella (where an wise hospitalero had advised me to get some rest for several days). As happens when a world away from home, the passenger next to me was from Chicago in the United States where her brother coached a women's rugby team: so she knew well the name of my national rugby team plus more. As we were talking we came up a rise and stopped just as the bus in your photo has done. And carried on to Logrono.

Eighteen months later and I had returned to Estella, from where I had walked to Viana. In 2016 I had walked Logron to Najera over several days, after a rest some some hospital treatment. So now, in October 2017 I waited for the morning bus in the shade opposite the bus stop. And again the bus swept up the hill and we all clambered aboard and carried on to Logrono.

Thank you for bringing those memories back.

Kia kaha (Take care, be strong, get going when you can)