We have arrived in St. Jean or St. Jean Pied de Port to give it its full name. It’s been an eventful journey. We rose early, grabbed breakfast in the hotel – the standard hotel buffet that I’ve eaten thousands of times in hundreds of different hotels from Japan to San Francisco by way of Kuala Lumpar, Mumbai and New York. Bits of fresh fruit followed by chipolatas, bacon and egg (Goodbye vegan eating for the duration of this Camino), bread and dodgy coffee.

Thankfully Dorothy had doused our featherweight Rab anoraks in Nikwax (brilliant stuff) which kept our torsos, head and arms dry, but our legs and feet got pleasantly wet. No problem; it was a short gallop to the entrance to Gare Montparnasse and an hour long wait for our TGV.

Unfortunately some poor rat had gone to rat heaven sometime earlier

Possibly having been sent there by …

Somewhat chastened by the thought of the life and death struggle that had occurred earlier. Perhaps the dog was disturbed in a private moment and had attacked out of anger, perhaps it had snuck up quietly and marked his moment of success. Who knows.

Back to the Gare. We spent an hour chatting to a French chap of roughly our age who had been a rugby coach in his prime. When one of his young players suffered an appalling life changing accident, he and six members of the team undertook to run from Pau, a small town near St. Jean, each running half a marathon each day in relay until they arrived in Santiago. They raised some 40,000€ for the young lad who unfortunately died ten years later from his injuries.

He is currently living in New Caledonia but was on his way to Biarritz to spend some time with family. He’s now the coach to the New Caledonia women’s rugby team.

The TGV is an astonishingly quiet train and although travelling at almost 300 kph for pretty much the entirety of the journey is a delightful experience.

The French system is so more sophisticated than our shanty offerings.

We left the train at Bayonne and after a short wait in the station concourse joined the train for St. Jean. The last time we did this, the train was clearly extremely old, very reminiscent of the narrow gauge trains in Wales. This was different, modern, fast and clean. Unfortunately, we were turfed out in Combo les Bains and popped into a large bus for the remainder of the journey. I suspect that the old line is being upgraded, something of a shame but unsurprising.

As is the way of these things, while we were waiting to board the train which didn’t actually make it to St. Jean we got chatting with a lovely gentle chap from Mauritius who was about to start his first Camino. We, by that I mean I, plied him with gratuitous advice which he took gracefully. I hope he makes it to Santiago – I suspect he will.

We’re staying tonight in la villa Esponda. We have a very light pleasant room in the rear of the building, perfect for a decent night’s sleep before setting off tomorrow.

I’m writing this sitting across from Dorothy at Café de la Paix (something of an aspiration) whilst we wait for 7 o’clock and our reunion with the delicacies of le Chat Perche. We’ve picked up our credentials and had stern admonitions about taking plenty of water, avoiding the animals and carrying rucksacks no more than 10% of our body weight. To all of which we nodded and were given the appropriate blessing. On we go.

Meanwhile, Alistair and Rachel are happily ensconced in Aubergue Borda where in Rachel’s words the owner is ‘somewhat eccentric’. Alistair is apparently expecting us to turn up with his breakfast – not a hope 😊

Oh, one final image

Buen camino