FRANCE - Buen Camino - Prologue

This trip, folks is all about the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route across Northern Spain to the shrine of St James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela. It's now a major long distance footpath and thousands of people walk it each year. I'm doing part of it with friends Andrew & Sue. We are walking the section from St Jean Pied de Port (in France) over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles (in Spain) then onward to Pamplona. After this we will be walking a stage in the Rioja region of Northern Spain before getting the train to Sarria to walk the final 100km to Santiago.

So what have we done so far - Firstly a flight to Biarritz (from Southampton - easier to get to than Stansted) and a night in nearby Bayonne before getting the train up to today's usual starting point of the Camino in St Jean Pied de Port. 

Bayonne was an unexpected find, a lovely city on the River Adour, in the French Basque Country not far from the coast. Lots of narrow streets and a cathedral all on the banks of a wide river.

 

The following day it was an hour on the train up a branch line to St Jean in the Pyrenean foothills, Another lovely place. 

So you all know how this works - You get a little booklet called a "Credencial". When you stop on the way to grab a drink or buy something or stay overnight they will stamp it for you to prove what you have walked. When you get to Santiago, if you have walked at least the last 100km of the Camino, you get a certificate to say you've done it, called a Compostela (hence the city's name).