St. Jean Pied de Port

 

We departed from Paris bright and early on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.  We took a train from Gare Montparnasse south to Bayonne, France.  On this day, we were supposed to transfer to another train that would get us to our starting point for our Camino, but due to French strikes throughout the country, our train was cancelled and we were quickly rerouted to a bus.  There wasn't much difference in travel time, but the route was amazing, curvy, but stunning so I was thankful for the experience.

 Typically, most people traveling to St. Jean Pied de Port's small town destination are there to become pilgrims, walkers of the Camino Frances, one of many routes to arrive, by foot (or bike, or horseback, or wheelchair) at Santiago de Compostela, nearly 500 miles or 800 kilometers away.

St. Jean Pied de Port stands at the base of the Roncevaux Pass across the Pyrenees. Pied-de-Port means 'foot of the pass' in Pyrenean French ** 

It didn't matter how many videos I watched to prepare for this arrival; it is very hard to frame it or photograph it, but SJPdP is plopped directly on the base of Pyrenees and therefore its streets are 45° angles.  Even walking through town, anyone knew they were already preparing for the first day on their Camino.

Even though we arrived to rain, we quickly managed to hike up from the station to find our "home" for the next two nights: Gite Makila.  We were absolutely blessed with a backdrop of the Pyrenees from our room, but very glad that we made the decision to acclimate to our surroundings for more than one evening so we recover from jetlag and explore the town.  

The next morning, on June 7th, we were treated to breakfast at our gite alongside 12 other pilgrims that were gearing up for their first day across the Pyrenees.  We met our first camiga, Simone, from Canada, who like us, decided to spend the day in SJPdP before beginning her Camino.

  

The three of us spent the day roaming the town, visiting the Citadel, tasting the foods, and enjoying all the new faces arriving in town.  But before we could do any of that our first order of business was to get our Pilgrim passports that would provide us a way to collect SELLOS or stamps throughout our journey.  Our passports would be used as proof that we walked our Camino upon our arrival in Santiago de Compostela at the end.

 That first SELLO, our symbolic shells, and a map were our proudest moments, knowing that this was real and we were doing it!

Finally, on Thursday, June 8th, Chato, Simone and I, alongside ten other prospective pilgrims from our gite, would pick up our packs, look for the arrows to point us in the right direction, and follow the cobblestone path out of town and up onto the mountains.

Start time: 6:50 am

There's no words to describe how fast you start ascending into the Pyrenees.  The road is paved and the difficulty is immediate.  But oh the rewards...

About 5 kilometers/3 miles in, the spectacular surroundings show off the town of St. Jean, from where we had just left.  There are no benches to recover or take a break, so sometimes leaning was the best option.

15km/9.3 miles and 4 hours of uphill walking, with one break for a snack at Orisson, finally found us off of paved road and on a variety of gravel and dirt paths.

 

Without fanfare, all of a sudden, we fumbled across the border.  No signage, no check-in station or stamp in our "real" passports, we left France behind and entered Spain.  The only note we could say we noticed was a change in our cell phone service.  Simone, with two new camigas, Jo (NC via Venezuela) and Celeste (Chicago) crossed first.  

We were thrilled to reach this first milestone of our Camino, but we still had miles ahead of us.  With Roncesvalles finally in sight, we met new camigos, Craig and Jamie (Tennessee) and finished the last part of the hike descending steep forest paths, dodging tree roots and branches, a slipping along mossy rocks.

Exhausted, but pretty proud of all that we saw, we arrived at Roncesvalles and our albergue for the night, a pilgrim hostal that has aided those walking the Pyrenees for a thousand years.

Day's end stats:

Start: 6:50 am @ Gite Makila; St. Jean Pied de Port

Km: 24.3

Miles: 15

End: 6:15 pm @ Albergue Roncesvalles

Video: LINK