Day 3 - Monsoon Season

The rain hasn't stopped its torrential downpouring all night. And in fact doesn't stop until about 2pm. I've decided to stay in Pamplona today and give the weather a chance to cheer up a bit by tomorrow. So today is a sightseeing day with an exploration of this ancient walled town. I have never been anywhere with such a preponderance of bars. They are everywhere and exist it seems mostly just do business with the locals 51 weeks a year and make all their cash in the bull run week.


The weather has been so bad that the Rio Arga has broken its banks for the first time since anyone can remember and is flooding the low lying areas of the town below the walls. Some of the cars in the car park are underwater and others have been swept away. Looks like the right decision to stay put. If you look at these two pictures, you can see how much the river rose...
After a walk around the city walls with views that I imagine would be spectacular if there wasn't the grey cloud cloaking everything, I headed into town for a bite of their famous jamon, which I have to say was delicious. Tonight after watching the F1 I am going out to a really good restaurant to taste some of the local specialities. 

In the meantime, its a chilled out siesta and a lot more book reading. Lucky I have so many on this iPad...

Sunday evening in Pamplona town... What a difference! Whereas Saturday night had the joint heaving, Sunday evening and it was a ghost town. After wandering around in vain trying to find a restaurant - any restaurant -  that was open, I plumped instead for the 'eating in the hotel' option and the food was delicious. It also enabled me to get a reasonably early night so that I'd be up with the lark the next day for my hell or high water (possibly literally) drive to the lunchtime stop where I'd agreed to meet Steve and Julian.

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