I got a very good night's sleep and a hot shower at the Holiday Inn Express. There was a complimentary buffet breakfast. I took another nap after breakfast. I wanted to get my clothes washed at the hotel, but they said it would take two days and gave me the address to a laundromat. I just ended up washing my socks in the sink by hand.
At 18:00, I ordered a taxi through an app called Pidetaxi. It works similar to Uber. I went to the Old City to walk around. Near the city hall I saw Nicholas, the French lute player, who I last saw last at the church in Viscarret-Guerendiain. He was busking with his lute in the walled part of Pamplona. We talked for a few minutes until a bearded guy interrupted us. He was carrying two full bags of groceries from the nearby Carrefour and was well-dressed, but he was pitching some type of sob story about being poor or homeless. Nicholas offered to give the guy €2 from his hat. The guy looked like a North African migrant rather than a Basque.
At 20:30, I went to Cafe Iruna in Plaza del Castillo. It was one of my bucket list items for the trip. If you have read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, you will know about a third of the book takes place at Cafe Iruna. They run a deal where you get a drink, bread, starter, main dish, and desert for €16.90. I got a water, a cannoli appetizer, roasted cod in squash, and vanilla ice cream. The food was okay, but not worth returning for. I then took a taxi back to the hotel after finding a taxi station a short distance out of the Plaza del Castillo. The driver seemed to have had too much wine and pinchos earlier because he was rambling like he was drunk the whole way.
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| The walled city of Pamplona. |
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| Pamplona's City Hall. |
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| Cafe Iruna. |
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| Plaza del Castillo. |
