To keep you up to speed, the French route that we were on is called the ‘Chemin du Puy’ and goes from Le Puy en Velay to St Jean Pied de Port at the base of the Pyrenees. The Spanish route that we did last year is called the ‘Camino Frances’ and goes from St Jean to Santiago de Compostela. We are going to Barcelona, need to catch a train, and the nearest station is in Pamplona so we decided to walk the extra 70 odd kilometres.
We left behind our French and German friends and joined the Spanish Fleet as the masses departed.
No need to wait for breakfast in Spain because cafes are in nearly every village along the way, and you can buy food and coffee in the one place. These Spanish croissants gave the French ones a run for their money, but we are about to miss the Pain aux Raisins which became our favourite. Friendly clouds greeted us as we once again walked the magnificent ‘Beech tree kilometre’ from Roncesvalles to Burguette. Once again in Hemmingway’s holiday village we saw the same dog sitting in the same place on the window sill of our breakfast retreat. Lovely to be back in this pretty little Basque town.
Out into familiar country but feeling a little removed as we were track hardened, ending our walk and feeling fit while the mostly untried were going through the first day’s trials and errors. One of these freshmen was an Irish missionary priest who had lived in Venezuela as did Corrie giving them lots to talk about as we arrived in our second ‘coffee and food bar’ of the morning. We left him in this village, joined up again with our constant French friend (speaks no English), Mado, whom we seem to converse with quite easily but slowly.
Through moss covered forests and wild bracken and buttercup hills it is not long before we arrive once again in Zubiri with it’s delightful medieval bridge and plaza and to our new home. Like last night we are up in the roof again where a skylight is our window and if we sit near it and look back towards our mirror we get a great view. A step up on last year, when we accidentally booked into a truck station 2kms off track, so a bit wiser we are now in a walker’s room and back on track.
I have also posted some more photos on yesterday’s post.
Our very final leg will be tomorrow where we end in Pamplona and hang up our walking shoes until the next time. In the meantime we will wash our clothes – recharge the camera battery, our little Mac, and ours – and take a walk around town. See you tomorrow.
Will, Missing you at Parkinsong – plenty of stretch and the group is performing well
Jim
Well, well, well bleedin’ well done… I’ve just read the total trip from start to finish this afternoon… what another great effort, although I sensed the voice of experience after doing another leg, nevertheless for us “gentle readers” it has been a staggering effort, congratulations. Where to next year?