Our third day was more representative of camino days from last year. We left early.  Found a place to eat our lunch/late breakfast and continued on to our destination for the day. 

But, I am getting ahead of my self. The Alburgue last night was designed for 40 pilgrims in one big room, but San Sabastian being a popular town, we had over 50 in the room. Quite a few were sleeping on the floor!

   
 
We were out of the Alburgue by 6 am in the darkness of the morning. 
Within 20 minutes we had to take our outer shirts off and convert our long pants into shorts.  Our first strech of the climb was non-stop. 

   
    
    
    
    
 
We made steady progress and were missing our group from last year and the many selfies that we took. This one is for you. 

At about 8:00 we stopped on the side of the road to have our makeshift breakfast.  Out of nowhere we saw this cow make a beeline toward our food. I was not fast enough with my camera, but Pat was lightening fast in saving the food bag. 

   
 The country road turned into thick forest and rocky trails, always with steep climbs and descents. 

   
    
    
    
    
 We finally saw the town of Orio, but unfortunately we had to climb down to the road, cross a tunnel, and then climb right back up again.

   
    
 It is in this climb that I saw this petrified pilgrim refusing to do one more climb.

  
At the top, we did get to see the San Martin Church that dates back to 13th century. 

  
In fact, quite a few buildings are still preserved in the town of Orio and it is a historic town. 

   
 The town is alongside the river and it was originally forbidden to charge ferry fee from the pilgrims. Too bad, now we have bridges and no one was there to shuttle us around. We decided to have our lunch and skip the inviting Alburgue since it was only 11 am (we had covered 16+ km and the next town was only 7 km away). 

   
   
We walked along the river on the side of the road with a nice breeze and for 2 km there was not an inch to climb!
We began our last climb through beautiful terraced vineyards. Along the way we enjoyed again a few blackberries. The two ripe black ones were in our tummies right after I took the picture. 

   
 
The final climb down was to the town of Zarauz, a tourist town with a  beautiful beach, boardwalk and golf course.  This made for a long but nice 24 km walk for the day.