Day 1 St Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles

It’s 6.30am in St Jean Pied de Port near the Pilgrim’s Office, the sun is up and we are ready to kick off our 900+ km journey. We follow the road through the village to find the path which leads up the Napoleon Way and across the Pyrenees.

The first day of this route was clearly meant to be a test, it's a relentless up hill climb for the first half of the day, the Refuge de Orisson appearing like a beautiful mirage at around the 8km mark with the promise of coffee and breakfast with an astounding view out over the mountains.

After climbing for most of the day, the path drops steeply for the last few kilometers into Roncesvalles. We had some good advice from the Pilgrims Office on which rich route to take for this last section...and we completely failed to follow it!

Join us to hear how it went.

Buen Camino!

Useful Links from this episode are below, if your podcast app does not let you access them directly head on over to https://isthistheway.net .

• Village to Village Camino de Santiago Guidebook (amazon.com)
  This is the guidebook that we used, it's small and easy to carry and has great information for every stage of the Camino Frances and for the Finisterre option at the end. Includes good pointers on diversions and alternative routes that can be taken in places.
• Hotel Itzalpea (booking.com)
  Where we stayed in St Jean Pied de Port. Nice room with private bathroom and airconditioning, was clean and comfortable, staff were super friendly. This is just outside the wall of the old town and a brief stroll to the Pilgrims Office.
• Hotel Roncesvalles (booking.com)
  This is where we stayed in Roncesvalles, they have an excellent restaurant in the building, we had a great meal and tried some local wine. Highly recommend it as a way to reward yourself for finishing day 1. Our room was a small 1 bedroom apartment with kitchen and bathroom, very comfortable. Unfortunately there is no store in town so we couldn't pick up food to cook for ourselves.
• The Way (2010)
  We mention this movie a few times in this episode and during the walk, if you want to get a (slightly dramatised) idea of Camino it's a good watch. We watched it the night before we set off for our first day to get into the spirit of things.