Driving the Camino, St Jean Pied de Port, France Day 6

Day 4 (we spent several days in Barcelona). With the help of Google maps, and Tuckies navigation, we drove our rented car from Barcelona to to St. Jean in France. St. Jean is the starting point of the Camino Frances. We founds that there were about 300 roundabouts in the way, and google put us on a one lane paved road before we hit St Jean. At that point a road map would have worked better. We finally reached our destination, and made ourselves comfortable in a small apartment. We were in a stand alone room behind this building, and it cost _______ per night.

We spent 2 days exploring the town, visiting familiar pilgrim sights, and seeing places that we had not had time to see in 2017 when I was here with Laura.

The bridge above is the bridge all pilgrims cross over the river that runs though town, and which was showcased in the movie “The Way”. From the bridge its a few short blocks to the actual start of the Camino. Frances. Charlemagne took the same route over the Pyrennes on his way to fight the Moors at Pamplona and the region to the south, before returning to France.

The street above is right by the Pilgrim’s office, where Pilgrims get their passport for the 500 mile walk to Santiago.

We drove part of the Camino Frances out of St. Jean, but it soon got too steep and narrow for us to drive safely, The one lane paved road goes all the way to Roncessvalle, but meeting another car on the way would be pretty scary.

The street above is usually full of pilgrims, headed to the arch in the distance through which the Camino actually starts.