We left Pessac this morning after a decent breakfast and a good night’s sleep. Refreshed, we hit the road and quickly hurtled along France’s very, very flat motorways (south of Bordeaux) to Bayonne before turning left onto busier but much smaller side roads in the direction of St. Jean.

The road curved gracefully around the foothills of the Pyrenees allowing my boyish racer inclinations and sports mode on the A3 full reign. Lunch in St. Jean was excellent, many thanks to trip advisor,

as was our chat to the volunteers in the pilgrim’s office.

St. Jean was extremely busy

with lots of cyclists in the obligatory Lycra tops and padded shorts and new pilgrims groaning under the weight of their newly acquired backpacks and inappropriate footwear (boots when they should have been in the marshmallow heaven of Adidas supernova running shoes). St. Jean is also clearly a tourist destination and a rather attractive medieval town.

We’re going to drive across to Pamplona tomorrow morning, park the car in the car park underneath the main bus station and then catch the bus to Roncevalles where hopefully we’ll spend the night in the large albergue.

Friday should see us walking up and over the Pyrenees back to St. Jean before returning on the higher alternative route to Roncevalles on Saturday when the weather and the views from the top of the mountains should be at their very best.

We’ll make our way back to Pamplona before heading off to Limoges on Tuesday. Should be fun. Some really lovely mountain walking, in both directions and it’ll fill in the gap left by our misfiring attempt in the summer.

Now on to last night’s screwup. We’re in what purports to be a spa hotel in Ossac, some 14km from St. Jean. I’m underwhelmed. We arrived, got a series of frosty looks from the guy at reception who then led us to our room on the second floor, saw that Dorothy was staggering under the weight of bag and rucksack and … completely ignored her. I had my hands full and couldn’t help so poor Dorothy clambered clumsily up two floors of rickety steps. Not impressed.

Dorothy has briefly checked out the spa – looks ok but is very small. I’m under instruction not to book anything in future without consultation with Dorothy. Consider my knuckles wrapped 😞.

That’s it for now, Buen Camino.