Travel to San Jean Pied de Port - the Pilgrimage Start

Per the itinerary: 

Take the 6am Eurostar from St. Pancras Station to Paris Gare du Nord.  Get across Paris and pick up the TGV to Bayonne.  Change trains in Bayonne to a commuter train for the last 40 minutes to St. Jean Pied de Port (SJPP).

The Route to SJPP

We spent the night at the St Pancras Renaissance hotel so we could sleep in until 4am in order to catch our train in the morning.  We had a lovely room with a view of the train station.

Last night we met for a wonderful tasting menu at The Cinnamon Club.  7 courses of delightful Indian food and I ate everything.  I was swollen like a tick and still digesting when the alarm went off at 4.

We went Eurostar+ which meant all the advantages of first class, except no priority boarding or lounge access.  The savings ran into the hundreds of Euros and we knew that the lounge wasn’t worth the extra price.  For those who don’t know, the Eurostar is a high speed train that goes through the Chunnel (underwater tunnel through the English Channel).  Now we are going 220km (137 mph) – highest speed was 334.7km.

Before the Chunnel

After the Chunnel

Once in Paris we had to change to Gare Montparnasse and catch the train to Bayonne, which is basically Biarritz. It was a beautiful day in Paris! We took a taxi across town to Gare Montparnasse and had an impromptu tour of the city by the taxi driver who insisted on taking all the side streets. We got stuck behind a truck that couldn't make it through the narrow streets. About 20 minutes and several Euros later someone was able to guide the huge truck through the bottleneck. We suspected the taxi driver was taking us via the scenic route - thank goodness we had 3 hours between trains.

The train Paris to Bayonne was a TGV, so also high speed. The seats were more comfortable than the Eurostar, but no food was included. Buni was almost thrown off the train for not having a ticket. The views were pastoral, but not memorable.

Bayonne was a bit of a disappointment and not so charming. We decided to have dinner there because we were arriving late in SJPP. We ended up having "fast food", a pate sandwich and a ham sandwich, while waiting for our connection

We were notified yesterday that our train from Bayonne to SJPP has been cancelled.  Thankfully this is a commuter train and there is another one (the last one) an hour later. Then there were some issues with this train which eventually left about 20 minutes late. The scenery on this last leg was very pretty as we wound around up the valley to SJPP and our destination.

We finally arrived at our "superior" accommodation the Hotel des Ramparts, which seemed desperately average and our room was on the highest floor. This trip includes a luggage service which will transport my stuff on my behalf so I don't have to carry it. This "stuff" weighs about 40+ pounds - I decided to bring a second pack (the red one in the movie) vs. a suitcase because I knew there would be places like our current hotel - high, tight walkups without elevators. Putting the weight on my back is a lot easier to take upstairs. My day pack (blue) will weigh under 10 lbs.

We were pekkish and did find an open restaurant on the banks of the River Nive. I had french fries and croquets. Chris had a steak and fries. Both were very greasy, but at least his steak didn't come out "blue" (very rare like the french like)

This was a long day starting at 4am and ending at about 9:30, so fell in bed exhausted. More on SJPP in the next blog entry.