Camino - London to St Jean Pied de Port

Hotel at Stansted was good - clean and quiet. Woke up early and had a good breakfast (free, included in hotel price). Sausages, baked beans, scrambled egg, yoghurt coffee toast. I won't need any lunch after that. Finished yesterday's blog and posted while I was in the breakfast room since that is the only place with wifi. Caught the 9:00 am shuttle back to the airport, checked backpack. All very quick and easy. Ryanair seems to work well if you follow their rather picky rules and are willing to put up with their efforts to make you buy extras when you are trying to book on the website. "Preferred seating, early boarding, exit row, aisle seat, insurance, checked luggage in advance, checked luggage on day of travel". All cost different amounts but the base fare of £19 is low and avoiding the extras for a 2 hour flight makes for a good deal.


Flight not until 12:25 so a wait but they have 1 hour free wifi so I am able to pass the time.
Flight was on time and good. No problems. I would fly with them again but the rules at strict and if you follow them is very cheap. We arrived about 15 mins early and after I had collected my luggage found Werner. He had already found out about the bus to Bayonne where we will catch the train to St Jean Pied de Port. After I had combined the things from my hand luggage into the backpack and found a bin for the great sack Christa had made for my backpack and the bag from my hand luggage we went to the bus stop followed by several people who had heard us talking and wanted to do the same but had no idea what to do. The bus came, we all got on and for €1 we went to the next town of Bayonne. We then had to walk across the river to the train station followed by a line of others like the Pied Piper.


We had about 2 hours to wait so we looked for a place where we could have a beer sitting outside in the sun. After walking around for about 20 minutes we ended up back at the station where there were some tables outside in the sun and had beer while we caught up on news and compared plans for the next 5-6 weeks. When we got to the platform for the train there were lots of people waiting already. The train came, only one car. We got on and found 2 seats and it seems that everyone found a seat but it was completely full. It took about 1.5 hours and stopped 10 times but finally we got to SJPdP. The scenery was pretty.

Most of the people on the train were going to SJPdP so there was quite a crowd walking with backpacks into the town. We found our Albergue easily.

They were waiting for us and for some others from the train and we then had a greeting where all 18 guests introduced themselves along with a glass of port or something similar that was white. The others were from Holland, Belgium, Germany, USA, Scotland and England. Then we had a good dinner family style. After that we went to the Pilgrim Office across the street to get our Credencias stamped and were ready to set out the next morning.


Our room had 8 people in bunk beds. We had one upper and one lower. I had the lower and Werner the upper. We sorted our things and at 10:30 was lights out. It was rather like being back at school but fine. The room was too small to take a photo of.


Weather forecast for tomorrow is perfect. Sunny and warm and we are really excited to be finally ready to start.

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