At last the day has come. We are so excited. For months we have been itching to get to this day. We are also a bit apprehensive, this is the most challenging day in the physical sense. Other days will be challenging mentally and emotionally no doubt.

The Route de Napoleon is 26km on a flat map adjusted to 32km to allow for the climb. 1390m of ascent to the top of the Pass. A long and arduous day but also one with beautiful and spectacular views.

A typical French /Spanish breakfast of coffee, juice, toast and bread with jam. Our breakfast wasn’t till 7.30 so we would have some of the last to get away at about 8am. We bought a sandwich on way out of St Jean. This is half a french stick with cheese and ham.

We exited the Porte d’Espagne following in the footsteps of Napoleon and Charlemagne and a few million pilgrims in crossing the Pyrenees.

What an absolute buzz. Perfect weather – hot, sunny and no wind and about 12 degrees at the start. It was pretty clear that the Pass could be brutal at times and even just last week it was very cold with snow and strong winds.

The climb starts from the very first step, gentle at first but steadily getting steeper as you leave the village houses behind. The first two hours (8km) are through lush green farm land with lots of trees, sheep with black faces and curly horns and mainly on a sealed one lane road with a little bit of traffic. We left the road and on a rough stoney track climbed the steepest part of the day for about 3km. It was now about 27 degrees and most people found this part very difficult. We were sweating like pigs but did okay as we are not carrying heavy packs.

In this section we caught up with a lady from Indiana and started talking with her. She was getting very hot and dehydrated and Barbara gave her water from her bottle as we had two each and new we could refill further on. The lady was very, very grateful. Due to the extreme religious enthusiasm of some of the pilgrims I half expect stories to circulate of the Angel Barbara who miraculously appeared and gave succour to a pilgrim in need.

There are only two places to get food and drink today and the first is at a little refugio called Orisson which is at the top of that steep section. We had a coffee and filled our water bottles. There are only three places to get water today, here and at two mountain springs further on. Orisson also has the only toilet for the day. Literally one toilet cubicle. Thousands come over here each day in the summer. Can you imagine the state of it.  And the queues.

From there to the top of the Pass it is steady climbing, back on a sealed road and out in the open. No trees or shelter up here. A farmer had a little van on the side of the road and sold the most expensive bananas, apples, bars and drinks in the world. Barb bought bananas in perfect French.

Besides the spectacular views there are points of interest, a statue of Mary, a cross, a couple of graves and lots of signs and information on height gained, distance gained, distance to go etc.

It is now out in open grass land with wild flowers and cattle and horses roaming freely. They have large bells which go clong clong as they move about. The cows are fat and look more like the build of a hippo. The horses are small with very hairy legs.

At about the 20km mark you cross the border from France to Spain. It’s just a cattle grid on the path and a little sign. No immigration formalities here. This is now all off road on a nice wide trail. You can see it would be very muddy in the rain but for us was hard and compacted.

We came to some snow left over from last week and it was oh so refreshing to rub it over your forehead and round your neck.

More climbing but now through beautiful forest which shelters us from the sun. A little cool whisper of a breeze has also come to assist us. From the top at the Col de Lepoeder it was 5km downhill mostly through beech forest to Roncesvalles, the end of our day.  We could see the monastery at Roncesvalles from the summit and it was a very welcome site.

We started at 8 and finished at 3.30 with a total of about an hour for rests and food. A totally awesome day. At times we were part of a string of people and often on our own.

Our hotel is located inside the monastery which has served pilgrims since 1219. The hotel is very comfortable and brilliantly combines very modern fittings with the heritage original. We had a great meal that came with a bottle of very smooth velvety red wine. This was too nice and against our better judgement finished most of the bottle. I suspect we will regret this in the morning.

We were very pleased with today. Of course we are tired but have no aches and pains and our feet have no blisters or hot spots.

Theme song for today: The Beatles

I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink
I’m so tired, my mind is on the blink.

 

 

 

Today is my birthday. I feel very excited.

I’m supposed to be at home with my family gathered round me, because I’m 67 years old and they think I am going a bit strange.

Well sorry kids. You can stick that. I feel like I’m just 7 years old and today I am going on an adventure. A train ride. On a very special train.

As it’s my birthday, for breakfast I’m going to have a chocolate croissant.

The croissants are made by paul. He is all over Paris. All his shops say vinnoiseres,  maison de qualitie en 1889. I don’t know what this means but I think he must be very good. And very old.

He spells his name with a small p. Most days I just have a small pee as well. I might have to go and see someone about this .

The croissant was very yummy. But they are difficult to eat and I spilt chocolate and flakes all down my front. It seems to happen a lot these days. At least I wasn’t wearing my new pyjamas.

For my birthday I got some new pyjamas. They are blue on blue and soft and comfy. When you get old everything must be comfortable. In a previous post I said one of the reasons for walking the Camino was to take us out of our comfort zone!

Gare Montparnasse is really three train stations joined together. One level is local and underground trains, another is long distance and international and a bus terminus. The third probably interstellar, the moon or Mars maybe.

There are twenty four platforms in the long distance station. We are in coach 16 and in about the middle of the train so there are 30+ coaches. Both first and second class (us) are fully booked.

The train is a TGV – train a grande vitesse.  It is silver and shaped like a bullet.   It looks wickedly fast. I think it can do over 320km/hr. Once it did 575km /hr. We sometimes run parallel to the motorway and vehicles that would be doing 110 km/hr disappear backwards at about 100km/hr. The foreground is just a blur, the eye and brain are not fast enough to focus on anything. The middle ground is like watching a movie with the remote stuck on fast forward. Your eye cannot linger on anything for more than a few seconds before it disappears. Lamp posts rush by as if they are picket fences.

France is flat.  From Paris to the Pyrenees there is hardly a bump. The bright blue sky hangs down to a low horizon, there are no hills or mountains in the distance to push it up.

France is agricultural. Every square metre is divided up into paddocks. Brown for the ploughed, every shade of green and brilliant yellow for the rapeseed. A few trees, usually corralled up and fenced into some unusable corner.

No animals!  Where have all the animals gone? No cows, no sheep, cattle no horses, no pigs. Everywhere there are crops. They grow things, not rear things.

Lovely single farm houses, all white plastered with clay tile roofs, small windows and shutters. Then five or six houses gathered at a road intersection. Some villages hiding in trees, always with a church steeple and sometimes with a larger chateau on a bit of higher ground. The bigger villages have large storage sheds and silos next to sidings of the railway track.

And wind turbines. Sometimes a lonely outcast all on its own usually 5 to 10 grouped together hickeldy pickeldy, and then some armies, perfectly spaced, row after row of them.

The train is smooth and quiet, no clickety clack, clickety clack, no swaying, no creaking or jerking. Just a soft background hum – probably the air conditioning. It feels like the train is standing still and the world is rushing by.

After about 5 hours the train stopped at Dax where we alighted to change trains. We had 13 minutes to get our connection. 13 minutes counts down real fast when you don’t know what the hell is going on. Everyone in a uniform gave us different instructions, none of which we could understand. To get from platform to platform involved going down steps, through tunnels and coming up to the surface again. We did this four times before finding our train. It was the Bayonne train but was named Hendayes.

We got on the train with seconds to spare. The French pride themselves on trains running to the schedule. We were all a bit hot and flustered and my birthday wasn’t so much fun anyone. The train was an ordinary suburban train, noisy and swaying about and went clickety clack. Duh!  How could that be, it’s the same track as the TGV. It went like a snail in comparison.

After an hour’s ride we had another connection at Bayonne to St Jean Pied de Port. We only had a prepaid voucher for this and 3 pages of downloaded instructions on how to self print a ticket from a machine.  The station at Bayonne had four different types of machines and none of them would recognise us. We put in our name and the code we had been given but were rejected. We thought in the computer world our input may have had a Kiwi accent and so re-entered the info very slowly and clearly but we’re rejected again. There were too many drop down menus and options and we couldn’t really understand any of them so went and talked to a real person at the ticket desk and within about 20 seconds the lady had printed us tickets, put them in a cute little envelope and purred merci monsieur.

The third train of the day was a single carriage sort of rail car we had in NZ in the seventies. It was packed with us pilgrims and everyone had big packs, poles,sleeping bags, sleeping mats, groceries etc. It took nearly an hour to St Jean but now we were approaching the mountains and so went through steep sided gorges, crossed rushing streams etc.

St Jean Is the end of the line from Paris, where you hit the Pyrenees. The Swiss would have started tunnelling but the French just stopped so from here we walk.

St Jean Pied de Port is an old walled medieval town, a stronghold guarding several of the easier passes over the Pyrenees. Inside the walls of the old town had the Citadel on top of a hill, narrow winding streets, cobble stone footpaths. Outside were the rugby fields, schools, supermarkets,  etc. We found our hotel easy enough, what was once a grand mansion was now a run down but charming hotel.

We were met by the large and jolly owner who we knew liked his rugby and followed the All Blacks. He looked like he may have been a prop back in about 1970. He bundled us into a tiny telephone sized box of a lift and then ran up the stairs to be waiting for us on the second floor.

We explored all the streets, climbed all the battlements, got our first stamp in our pilgrim passport and found a restaurant for an evening meal. One option is a set menu for peregrinos for 12 euros, which we had,  3 courses and a carafe of red wine.

First course soup of potato, carrot, onion, lentils and a bag of salt.

Second course of fried chicken and chips.

Third course of Basque cake made with almonds.

It was a stunning, warm,sunny evening and wonderful to just relax with the red wine and reflect on all that had happened on a birthday I will never forget. The town is full of excited, nervous, apprehensive, confused but happy pilgrims all ready to start a bit of a walk tomorrow. We wandered back to our hotel and I put on my new pyjamas and slept very well.

Ipod song for the day sung by Joan Baez:

Lord I’m one,  Lord I’m two, Lord I’m three,  Lord I’m four, Lord I’m five hundred miles way from home.

We are five hundred miles from Santiago.  Doesn’t bear thinking about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes it is spring in Paris and it is sunny and warm with new blossom and leaves on the trees.

We were last here in 1978, 37 years ago, half a life time. We were here for our fifth wedding anniversary which I guess was appropriate as Paris vies with Venice as being the most romantic city in the world. We were camping in the Bois de Boulogne and were here for about 3 days. We ticked off all the tourist spots, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo at The Louvre, Sacre Coeur and went out to Versailles. The Centre Pompidou was newly open and an architectural sensation so spent some time there and went to the Folies Bergere which were still considered slightly risque back then.

This time we are only here a day before catching the TGV train to Bayonne tomorrow. We decided not to join any queues at museums or galleries or towers or river boats but to just take to our feet and soak up the sites, sounds, smells, tastes and feel the warmth of a lovely  Paris day.

We headed off toward the Eiffel Tower thinking this is a pretty big landmark and should be easy to find. Leaving our hotel we could see it off in the distance but after winding through narrow streets flanked with five or six story apartments we kept losing it until it popped up off to the left or right but still the same distance away.

This became a bit of a game as rule number one was no consulting a map. We did come across some interesting things. In a narrow street we saw a sort of conveyor belt contraption propped up at an angle against the building. A house lot of furniture was being loaded up to a little balcony on the third floor. We knew a lot of these older apartments had no lifts so now we know how they move their belongings.

Then to the circus of the Arc de Triomphe which is the epitome of organised chaos but somehow seems to work. Twelve roads radiate from the roundabout and there are about six layers of vehicles circulating and trying to enter and exit. If you are in the roundabout you give way to anyone entering which seems crazy. While there we saw a crash that injured a driver so a police vehicle and ambulance joined the circus. Three policemen stood in the road at the busiest intersections , waving their arms and blowing whistles. They were studiously ignored and almost run down many times. It’s amazing that tour coaches and eighteen wheeler trucks join this crazy dance.

Barbara is disappointed she is not getting to use her school girl French as people look at us and speak in English. At a cafe for breakfast she bravely asked for deux omelettes avec fromage et jambon s’il vous plait and the waitress said “right two ham and cheese omelettes, what would you like to drink”?

The hotel room,  actually a tiny studio apartment,  is great. Two minutes walk from the Air  France Les Cars shuttle bus stop and the Gare Montparnasse TGV train station. It is very trendily modern, has a bathroom with bath, a fully equipped little kitchen, wee table, with two chairs, couch, and a “Murphy” bed. The whole place only works because the couch sort of folds down onto the floor and the double bed hinges down out of the wall. With the bed down there is very little space for your bags or to walk around.

Tomorrow we head south.

 

Today was a contrast in two flights.

Air NZ departs at 11pm for a twelve hour flight. So we all start weary after a full day. There’s a meal at 1am which you don’t really want and then the cabin is darkened and you try and sleep or stare numbly with increasingly sore eyes at the back of the seat in front of you. There’s a moving image but you keep losing concentration on it. And your mouth gets drier and drier and your nose and ears block up. After hours and hours you look at your watch and 15 minutes have passes.

The passengers are 95% Chinese and they all seem to have brought young children. The children all want to scream and after a while you want to scream too. It’s dark inside and dark outside but nothing to see anyway because it’s all sea. After a lifetime the walking dead emerge into a hot humid beige haze land.

For some reason our luggage could only be checked through to Shanghai,  not Paris as other people’s were. So instead of going to a transit lounge with no formalities we had to fill out an arrivals card, queue for immigration, wait at baggage claim, queue at Customs and queue at security. Then a 2 km walk through what must be the largest terminal in the world to check in at Air France. No eticket kiosks here. Queue for ages to get a boarding pass, queue for security, queue for departure card at immigration. A 2 hour 50 minute stop over and spent 2 hour 20 minutes in queues.

We were not looking forward to the second flight of the zombies. But no, what a difference. The flight left at 10am so all the other passengers were fresh and excited, they were Chinese excited to go to Paris and French excited to leave China and go home.

After 2 hours lunch arrived and it came with champagne, wine and beer, and concluded with aperitifs. And it all came with chic, elegant flight attendants who truly smiled with their eyes and not fake smiles with only the corner of their mouths. They purred at you seductively in French even if they were only saying merci monsieur. I think lack of sleep and relaxing after lunch with a small bottle of cognac were having their effect.

Barb thought the flight attendants were a bit intimidating being so tall and immaculately groomed.

Little groups gathered in the aisles and the lobbies to the galleys and the rest rooms and everyone was very chatty and smiling and making new best friends. A million selfies were taken with nameless people you will never see again. Next month: delete, delete, delete.  Nobody bothered watching movies.

Outside and inside it was bright and we flew all day in the sunshine and it was all over land even if it was Mongolia or all the Stans. Is there an Anzacistan somewhere in Turkey? The only nagging thought was how many war zones we were crossing. In no time we had landed and it felt like you had spent a pleasant afternoon with convivial friends and you sort of didn’t want to leave.

It is interesting to sit in the plane and listen to the difference between Chinese and French. To me Cantonese seems to be sharp and jagged and shouted. French seems to be soft and silky and almost whispered.

Everyone talks about airline food so here goes. The food on Air France is no better than Air NZ. It is just slightly more adventurous and interesting.  What seems delicious in French is just a bit ordinary in English. On Air France, in the afternoon when the throat was starting to get a bit dry,they brought around ice cream on a stick. Just perfect.

 

For our age we are reasonably fit and healthy. We do an awful lot of cycling, regular walking and a little swimming. In February we went to Tasmania for 3 weeks which included some walking and 10 days of cycle touring with panniers. We had concentrated on keeping cycling fit and decided to leave preparation for the Camino until after we returned from Tas.

The chart below is a record of the training we did over the last 10 weeks:

The red squares are walking days, the green are cycling days and the white days were sitting out in the sun practicing drinking red wine and eating tappas.

Walks less than 10 km and rides less than 40 km are not recorded. We did a total of 708 km walking and 846 km cycling.

At the start we were aerobically fit, more so than needed for walking, but not walking fit.

We used the walks to try out different socks, shoes, clothes, etc, and also experimented with day packs and walking poles. The only things we didn’t get to trial were our ponchos as it didn’t rain at all.

Twice we did a four day walk – Raumati to Plimmerton to Wellington to Plimmerton to Raumati – 110 kms. The first time, in our second week of preparation we had tired legs and tender feet with one or two small blisters and hot spots. The second time in the eighth week was much more comfortable, no leg or feet issues and we had learnt to fill our ipods with our favourite music.

We probably didn’t do enough on hills but had no problem with Hemi Matenga, Paekak Escarpment, Wharero Farm, Matai Huka or Mt Kau Kau. We didn’t get to walk in snow or practice beating off wild dogs. One thing we did have to learn was to keep our walking speed down. The key to a long distance walk over many, many days is to walk slowly and softly.

For the last six months Barbara has been learning Spanish using Duolingo, a free online, interactive computer programme. This took about 30 minutes per day.

It will be fun to see how useful that is going to be. Paul practiced weird and wonderful hand gesturing.

Now we are just itching to get started. Keep following us to see how we get on.