Thursday, May 30, 2013

A day of travel!


Well after our beautiful reunion in the Dublin Airport arrivals gate, Bea and I checked in to our flight for France. We spent our two hour wait catching up at Butler's Chocolate Cafe. It had wonderful coffee, and even better chocolate! Our flight to France was uneventful aside from Beatrijs creepily taking awful pictures of me passed out (hadn't slept yet since America) and karma redeeming itself... A kid behind Bea threw up. 

Well we arrived in Biarritz, walked outside and found a bus going to the train station. We got to the cute little town of Bayonne, got out tickets, a delicious sandwich of brie, honey, and veggies, met a random New Zealander who had done the Camino twice and provided us with some tips, and hopped on the bus to take us to our starting point. Bea,as always on any moving vehicle, passed out in 30 seconds. I tried to hold on in an effort to adjust to the time change, but failed and spilled a very cold diet coke I was holding down my shirt as I fell asleep. 

Once we got to StJean we went straight to the reception for the pilgrims. We arrived just on time as we got some of the last places at the cheap municipal hostel. We paid ten euros for a hostel, breakfast and a pilgrims passport. 

At the hostel we met our four other roommates, all Americans like Katie. After settling in we had time to explore. The town is very picturesque and Katie especially kept on commenting on the wonderful colours and views all around. We followed a long set of steps which led us to a beautiful castle fort like structure. The view from here was incredible. 

After dinner of a shared pizza served by a snooty French waitress we went back to the hostel. Poor Katie at this stage was exhausted and jet lagged and is now asleep on the bed. 

So far all has gone well except the constant lashing rain. Tomorrow we will take the low mountain route to Roncevalles as the higher route is too windy and snowy and dangerous. Katie was a but bummed as she had her set on the mountain, oh well! We are excited to start the Camino for real tomorrow. 






 

No comments:

Post a Comment