Day 10

This is day 10, hard to believe.  We have walked about 230 km. Two days ago we were in Najara, not a great town, a bit jaded, but as usual the Camino surprised us again. It was a public holiday and festival day in Najara, with everyone out in their best clothes for a religous procession with a  celebration of wine and food afterwards. We went into the lovely old church and on my way out an old lady took me by the hand and walked up the aisle talking to me in Spanish the whole time and although I told her I did not 'comprende', she just continued talking to me seriously and would not let me go until we reached the door where upon she smiled and wished me a buen camino.

Yesterday we deviated off the camino and walked to the monastery town of Canas to visit the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Maria, a magnificient 11th century building where nuns still reside.  It houses one of the finest sarcophagi in Spain.  This detour required walking on bitumen roads for the entire day.

Yesterday was also the first day we have missed a yellow arrow or shell marker and become lost.  We ended up on an isolated road winding through farmland and had to flag down a farmer in a tractor for help with directions.  We have found the Spanish people to be so friendly and helpful and really go out of their way to help perigrinos.

Today we are in the town of Belorado.  On our way here we passed through the town of Santo Domingo de Calzada where we paid money to climb the 70 metre bell tower of the magnificient 12th century cathederal, which is unique in that it houses a rooster and hen inside the church in a special cathederal coop. This coop relates to the story of 'the Miracle of the Cock'.

We are having the most amazing time.  We have put in a few big days, the biggest walk was 25km and boy did our feet know about it.  The track varies from cement and bitumen through the towns to dirt roads, sometimes muddy, good gravel tracks, the best to walk on, to rough stoney pathways which are real torture on the feet. We all have tired aching feet now and are planning to have a rest day in Burgos in a few days time.

The churches here are incredible and the local people have a very strong Catholic faith.  In the larger villages the church is open every evening and they celebrate mass, sometimes a pilgrims mass. We attended one and it was really lovely.  Spanish chuches are so different due to the baroque decorations and artwork inside, lots of gold and statues, a bit gaudy really, but still amazing.

The temperature is still quite cool.  It's very cold some days and we have walked for several hours in very cold drizzling rain on two ocasions.  Other days have been sunny with clear blue skies and warm afternoons.  There are still traces of snow on the higher distant mountains.

Sometimes the food  is a bit dissappointing. They put on these set pilgrim menues so you have to take what is on offer which is not always great. They can do amazing things with eggs though, omlettes, tortillas, and the bread is also amazing, baguettes just like in France.  Eggs, bread, ham, cheese, and a good choice of fruit are the stable for breakfast and lunch.  We get up at 6am and get going by around 7am and try to walk for several km before reaching a village where we have coffee, eggs and bread.  We then eat some fruit along the way, then buy a ham and cheese baguette for lunch.  (The ham products here are amazing, like in France).

Camino Moments

*  It seems whenever we enter a village, church bells ring out a greeting.

*  It's amazing how we can communicate even though the other person knows no English and we know no Spanish, although the translater app on the phone also helps.

*  Meeting Luca, a 72 year old Frenchman, who is walking his 8th solo Camino.

*  Walking through a countryside of forests, vineyards, crops, olive groves, rolling hills, mountain backdrops, with a distant village coming into view every 5 to 10 km.

*  Picking red poppies growing wild on the edge of the track on Anzac Day to put on our packs, and then explaining their significance to pilgrims from other countries that we met throughout the day.

*  Sharing an evening meal on Anzac Day with several other Aussies, standing to say the Ode together, then a toast of "lest we forget" with a glass of Spanish wine.

*  Meeting a lone traveller, or a couple, and immediately forming a connection, especially with other Aussies, then spending the next several hours walking together, registering into the same accommodation for the night, then sharing a meal.

*  Arriving at a village after a 20+ km walk, tired, footsore, sometimes wet and cold, turning a corner and there is the friendly face of someone you met the day before, telling you where to find a good room for the night.

*  Being dissapointed when walking through villages that the churches are locked, unable to be viewed from inside, only to discover that most evenings in the towns where we stay, the church opens for a Pilgrims Mass, allowing us to see the magnificant architecture and decoration hidden within.

On the Camino

We returned our little car to Bayonne on Saturday, met up with Anita at the train station as she arrived from Paris, then went straight to the ticket office to verify our tickets only to be told that due to track work, the train to St Jean Pied de Port had been cancelled and a bus service was operating instead.  That was disappointing as we were all looking forward to the picturesque train journey to St Jean. But it was great to be together and we had a lovely evening wandering the streets of St Jean, having a few wines and a lovely meal before heading back to our hotel to prepare our packs and discard any unessary gear one last time before setting out early in the morning by taxi to Roncevalles.

We set off from Roncevalles in light drizzling rain, rugged up in gortex jackets, scarves and gloves in an effort to keep warm.  We were on the Camino and our first day was amazing, we walked through beautiful countryside, the track was very well marked, and we stopped for lunch along the way at a picnic table beside the road.  We bought a baguette in a village we walked through and Steve opened a tin of fish we carried with us, while I had vegimite which Anita had brought from home for me as a surprise!  Anita dipped into the small reserve of gluten free food she brought with her. Finding suitable food is going to be a challenge for Anita on the Camino. We saw no other pilgrims and spent the entire day walking on our own.

We spent our first night in the small village of Viskarret, a walk of around 15km. We arrived tired and footsore late in the afternoon and couldn't find a place to stay as all beds seemed to be taken. Then in an amazing turn of events, a local man came by in his car, offered us accommodation, then opened his small but well stocked grocery store especially for us so we could purchase wine and food to cook for dinner.  He then drove us to his Casa Rural which turned out to be a nine bedroom mansion which we had to ourselves for the night. We were stunned at first but it didn' t take long for us to settle in, take over the house, lounge around on the feather pillowed couch, have a few wines, cook a great meal in the fully equipped kitchen, crank up the heaters and have a wonderful evening!

WiFi has been non existant for the last few days hence the absence of blog updates.  Tonight we are in Puente la Reina after a long walk from Pamplona.  It is our 4th day on the Camino. On the second night we stayed in Larrasoan in Pension el Peregrino. Accommodation was limited so the three of us shared a nice room with three single beds and a balcony, unfortunately it was too cold and wet to share a wine on the balcony.

Today was another great day of wonderful scenery, very rural, very hilly, fields of canola  and grain and lovely small villages with beautiful old churches. We climbed an elevation of 350 metres to Alto del Perdon where there are wrought iron statues of medievil pilgrims, heads bent to the west wind, and then dropped (walked) an elevation of 450 metres. There were many pilgrims on the trail today, it was a very social day, we met several Aussies, had great conversations and enjoyed every minute, even the steep hard sections!

Although weary and footsore at the end of each day, we are travelling well, extremely well, managing the weight of our packs and looking forward to tomorrows unknown adventure.

Becoming Pilgrims

We are in St Jean Pied de Port.  Arrived this morning after driving from Salles de Bain, another lovely town.  We only had 50km to drive today as we wanted to get to St Jean early.  Although it is Easter Friday, everything is open, even the bank, so we were able to get cash out for the Camino as we don't know if we can use our credit card in the small villages.

Very busy here in St Jean.  it's a tourist town as well as the Easter weekend and the starting  point for many pilgrims.  Late this afternoon we watched from our hotel window as walkers filed through the narrow streets searching for their accomadation for the night.

Tomorrow we will drive 50km to Bayonne to drop off the rental car, meet up with Anita, then catch the train back to St Jean.

Today we officially became pilgrims as we attended the Pilgrim Office to receive our 'Credintial del Perigrino'. We made a donation and choose our scallop shell to tie onto our packs.  It was quite a moment, we had finally made it to this first point and will  begin walking in just two days!  My next blog will be from somewhere along the Camino.

Rural France

After leaving Condom and the Gascoyne Region, we travelled to the Dordogne Valley , calling into historical Villages along the way. This area is so fascinating, some villages date back to the 12th century.  All are built around a town square wirh a cathederal and all are architectually unique in some way.

The highlight was Beynac, a small medieval village on the banks of the Dordogne river. A steep climb through the village streets lead to an amazing castle built atop an escarpment which at varying times has housed both French and British Kings.

The movie 'Joan of Arc' was filmed here and the village below was the location for the movie 'Chocolat'.  I have been doing all the driving since leaving Condom as Steve came down with the flu and had two days of feeling lousy but is now on the mend.  I've really nailed this left hand drive manual geared car. I must admit to having stalled it a couple of times, usually at stop signs at busy intersections with cars behind. And I have turned the odd corner onto the wrong side of the road, but apart from that I'm quite enjoying driving through this beautiful part of France and most of the time Steve feels quite comfortable and safe.

At Beynac we took an hour long cruise on a replica cargo boat on the Dordogne River.  We passed lots of people in canoes and kayaks.  The river was running quite fast and they all appeared to be enjoying themselves.  We later made enquiries at the canoe hire place and found out there is a three day canoe/overnight camping trip to be done.  The river is really lovely with treed banks and the occasional gentle rapid and the odd Chateau to be spotted along the way.  Maybe a good reason to come back next year!

At the moment I am unable to share any photos of our travels on this blog,  For some reason we are unable to upload photos from our camera onto our Samsung tablet.  Perhaps we are doing something wrong but it just won't read the SD card.  It all worked perfectly at home, but not here, not now, not when we really want it to work!  We're still working on that problem.  Steve has been able to upload a photo from our mobile phone, hence the photo of the view from our hotel in Condom.

Our 'Camino Companion', Anita, arrived in Paris tonight on a straight through flight from Brisbane.  She has three nights in Paris and we have three days travelling in our hire car before meeting up in Boyonne for the train to St Jean.  Only 4 days now until the start of our Camino.
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Palm Sunday

Today is our third day witin  the car.  We don't know where we will be each day so for lunch we have on hand cheese, tomato, lettuce, and each morning we walk a few blocks to purchase a fresh bagette from the patisserie and perhaps some ham from a local shop.  France has amazing delicatessen hams and meats.

This morning when we walked into the town centre to buy our bread, the church bells were ringing and many people, mostly elderly, were making their way to the cathederal with small leafy branches in their hands and we realised it was Palm Sunday.

We spent the day touring the countryside visiting some of the historic villages we came to see in France.  Lorrasingle, Montreal, Forces and Mouchen were the ones we visited today.  Forces was the standout village, absolutely lovely, made even lovelier by perfect spring weather and clumps of purple iris and red poppies growing on street verges and planter boxes of pansies on ancient window ledges. Lorrasingle was especially interesting because it was a small town inside the grounds of a fortified castle surrounded by a moat.  

We drove through beautiful countryside today, green farmland, wine regions, forested roadways, all daubed in the light of a French impressionist painting.

Today we came across our first pilgrims.  We saw 20 or so people in groups of 2 or 4 walking the le Puy route to St Jean Pied de Port.  It was quite a sobering moment to realize we will begin our Camino in just 7 days time.

View from room in Condom

Leaving Paris

In one way it was hard to leave to leave Paris, in another way it was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city.  We didn't waste a minute in Paris so to sit on the train for the 5 hour trip to Bayonne through the French countryside was a welcome opportunity to relax and just stop.

Our thoughts were of home though as cyclone Ita, a catagory 5 storm, was bearing down on the Far North Qld coast.  Our children, grandchildren and most of Steve's family were to be impacted in some way, and Cooktown, where we lived for 18 years, was expected to bear the brunt of the cyclone.  Fortunately the storm weakened before crossing the coast and everyone was OK, some flooded in due to the torrential rain, but all OK.

Why doesn't Australia have a fast train service!?  Our journey to Bayonne by train was smooth, comfortable and very fast with hardly a vacant seat.  On arrival we walked straight to the Avis office to collect our rental car only to be dissapointed to be handed the keys to a silver Renault Twingo instead of a red Citroen C1 which we had asked for and which was pictured on the web page!  Steve drove while I navigated and somehow we bumbled our way out of Bayonne onto the open road to the town Orthez where we stayed the night in an overpriced Hotel.

It was a daunting task for Steve to get behind the wheel of a left hand drive, manual transmission vehicle and venture out into the busy traffic of a large city like Bayonne, but he did a mighty job and only scared the living daylights out of me a couple of times before settling into it.  Although we drive an automatic car at home, a right handed manual car would not have been diffuclt to master as we have both driven them at some stage. However a left hand drive manual car requires the exact opposite of what we are used to such as changing gears with your right hand instead of your left, and the wiper switch is where the blinker switch should be (the car will probably require new wiper blades by the time we return it) and one must also remember to give way to the left, not the right, and on a twin lane highway the slow lane is on the right, not the left.

It all became easier on the second day and Steve did a great job of driving us to the town of Condom, a UNESCO listed historic village on the Baise River, with a magnificient ancient Cathederal at it's centre.  Small cobblestoned streets and laneways lead to tiny butcher shops, patisseries, flower shops, restaurants and residences. Absolutely delightful.  Our home for the next two nights is the Logis de Cordeliers, a nice family hotel right in the historic section of Condom.  For 55 euros per night we have a clean room, comfy bed, private bathroom, and from our window a lovely view of a church steeple, with rolling hills of trees, cultivated farmland and farmhouses in the distance. Viva Fance.

Paris

Paris is everything I expected and wanted it to be.  Charming, bustling, steeped in history, art, and exquisite achitecture.  This is our fourth and last day in Paris before leaving by train tomorrow for Bayonne.  We've mastered the Metro, cruised the Seine, visited the Eiffle Tower, the Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, Basillique du Sacre Coeur, Montmartre and the Latin Quarter.  We've been to markets to buy French apples and strawberries, cheese, bread and croissants.  There are great little restaurents tucked down laneways where we haved dined on Beef Bourgogne, Confit Duck, whole grilled Sole, delicious pasta, Creme Brouillet, and of course jugs of lovely French red.  Our hotel is great and our room enchanting, very Parisian or at least what I imagine Parisian to be.  The hotel is very close to the metro, the river, restaurants and many attractions.  Although we catch the Metro to places of some distance away, we still manage to walk at least 10 km a day.  Paris is such a lovely city to walk through.

Sacre Coeur

Milestones

This will be the last blog entry from Australia until we return home at the end of June and today we did our last big walk before flying out in 3 days time.  We drove to the Tamborine Mountain Botanic Gardens, parked the car, and then spent two hours walking 8km up and down hills of varying degrees of steepness carrying our full packs, with a leisurely stroll through the gardens to recover. It was a good test of endurance and we passed with flying colours.  We can do this!  My next entry will be from gay Paris!

Milestones:

v  Since training began, we have walked well in excess of 550km

v  I can now walk up ‘Heartbreak Hill’ twice, with a full pack, without stopping

Wendy nearing top of 'Heartbreak Hill'

v  I just turned 60

v  Steve just received his second zero reading for cancer

v  We’ve packed our packs for the last time