The Route..Catholics, Jews, heretics and vagabonds.

Where do you start?

Truthfully, there are many places one can start the Camino. There are many Caminos in fact. They all lead to Santiago. We will be taking the most popular route, the Camino Frances. It starts in France, hence the catchy name. Cecelia and I will fly from Boston to Dublin. From Dublin we will be corralled, along with all the other Euro-cheapos, onto a Ryanair flight to Biarritz. From the Biarritz airport there is a bus to the train station. From the train station there is usually a train to a small town called St Jean Pied-de-Port. This being a Holy Year with unprecedented crowds readying to descend upon this quiet hamlet, the trains will not be running. At least not until July (so they say!) They are making repairs to the tracks. Timing is everything in life, I always say. So instead of a train, there's a bus that will drop the pilgrims off. After being up most of the night on a transatlantic flight, laying around in the departure terminal of the Dublin airport, elbowing my way towards an unassigned seat on Ryanair Flight #1982 and landing at 15:30 into the Biarritz airport, the prospect of transferring two more times onto busses was slightly unappealing. I hired a cab to meet us. We will be whisked and dumped at L'Esprit du Chemin hostel for a well-needed sleep. Check them out: http://www.espritduchemin.org/

Its a short though steep hike to our first stop. With jetlag and little sleep, oh! and a teenager, I didn't want to push the mileage the first day. We will hike just 10K (uphill) Thats about 6.5 miles. We'll stay at Refuge Orisson. A beautiful stone structure with magnificent views, if the weather is with you that is!
You can get a feel for them here: http://www.refuge-orisson.com/

It will be our second day that will start testing the toesies! Mostly uphill for 6 miles and then another 2-3 downhill to the monastery at Roncevalles. Historic Roncevalles that is. Historic because it was here that Charlemagne's army suffered its worst defeat under the Arabs. So the story goes. Ask any Basque, and he'll tell you it was the Basque fighters that delivered the humiliating blow to Charles the Great's rear guard. At any rate, for the past oh, 900 years or so, Roncevalle has been an Augustinian refuge for pilgrims crossing over the Pyrenees into Spain. Up and over and safe with a bed. 120 beds to be exact. Welcoming "all pilgrims...sick and well. Catholics, Jews, heretics, and vagabonds." Phew, I'm sure we'll fall under one of those categories!