St Jean Pied de Pont – Roncesvalles

Today was the start of our Camino to celebrate Mike’s retirement.

We stayed for our first night in the Hotel Central. My room was functional with a very comfortable bed and a stunning view from the window (first picture). I was on the main road side of the hotel so my earplugs came in very handy. We wandered around the town a bit after dinner before resting up for a big day in the Pyrenees.

The original town at nearby Saint Jean le Vieux was razed to the ground in 1177 by the troops of Richard the Lionheart after a siege and to this day the town’s layout is essentially one main street with sandstone walls encircling it.

It was fairly foggy/misty on the way up so views were limited, but it did provide a certain “atmosphere” to the walk. The cloud also preserved the heat so, even though the sun was well hidden, it was very humid and sweaty. We saw some cute donkeys and quite a few horses with foals as we walked to about 8km when we passed the Refuge Orrison, which is the last cafe/bar for the rest of the route.

The walk up to the refuge was the steepest, sustained climb of the day – 50% of the total ascent in 33% of the distance. It got a bit easier from there on, with a few sneaky exceptions thrown in. The clouds parted and we saw some sunshine and views as we crossed from France into Spain.

Here we are looking fresh and rested at the high point of our day, 1416m. This is the top of the Napoleon Route, named after Napoleon Bonaparte, as it follows the path his armies took when crossing the Pyrenees in 1813. The route is normally closed to walkers from October thru March.

The final stage of our day was a steep (500m in 3km) descent down a woodland path that was littered with stones and tree routes, meaning a careful (rather than headlong) descent down to Roncesvalles. The predicted rain held off until we had a needed (soft) drink on arriving at our destination and then bucketed it down once we were checked into our hotel.

A very enjoyable, if tough, day and great to back on the Camino. Game for today was to guess how many nationalities we would meet / talk to. At breakfast the offerings were 9, 10 & 11 – the end of day total was 23 – Switzerland, Italy, Romania, Ukraine, UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Netherlands, Canada, Mexico, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Hungary and Ireland.

Tomorrow is a lot of knee buckling descent and a fairly long day.