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IAH to LHR to BCN
In and out of Barcelona In and out of Pamplona Hello SJPP and the begining of the Camino Finally! We are on a train to Pamplona from Barcelona….we are in our 50's and have waited so long to take our trip. We have raised our children and now it is just the two of us again. I must focus on the present instead of all the years that have passed. Carmen is a very special woman….. After half a day of traveling, a connection from London which would come in very convenient later we arrive in BCN. Once arriving we took the metro to the area of town where our Airbnb host lives. We waited for her to return from the beach and settled in the room where we would be. Her cat was so friendly he wanted to sleep with us because he was very spoiled and I think we had taken over his room. We went out for dinner and walked around having a hard time finding anything open because it was a Sunday. We walked in the area where there were a couple of stores still open and found a shop that sold Jamon Iberico * and bought some to try out the famous Ham. Carmen had her first chocolate croissant and I had some ice-cream as we walked the area. June 11th |
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We woke up early in the morning and walked over to Barcelona Sants to catch the AVE to Pamplona. The sun was rising as we were going into the station. We passed up a group of teens that were still sitting around talking, with one of them holding on to a guitar while another was peeing on the sidewalk. They were headed home from the night out.
When we arrived to Pamplona and were headed out of the train station a Canadian couple also about to start the Camino shared there was an afternoon bus to St. Jean, so since Carmen said she did not want to waste time we decided to not spend the night in Pamplona. We caught the city bus to the ALSA bus station and bought our tickets right away. Having a couple of hours to burn we walked to a restaurant across the street from the bus station and ate lunch. I had a Tortilla Española and Carmen had authentic fresh dumplings from the Chinese owned restaurant. We then walked to the plaza to see the Monumento al Encierro (Bull Run Monument) which is an image of what it's like to run in front of the bulls during the corridas of the San Fermin festival. We took some quick photos and then headed back to the bus station. Yes, I wanted to go see the Hemingway Bust in front of the Bullring. The bus ride to St. Jean was over two hours. Carmen and I sat in the front seat so we had a great view crossing the Pyrenees and could see the driver staying on the road, inches from falling over the edge of the mountain. I hung on tight to my seat a few times waiting for the worst to happen with an escape plan in mind. Upon reaching St. Jean – I rushed us to 39, R. de la Citadelle to get our passports at the Acceuil Pelerin and to get our initial stamp. Unfortunately we had a volunteer that did not speak much English or Spanish so we just got the passport and not much more information since we were going north to do the northern route along the Cantabrian Sea and almost 100% of the pilgrims there were for the Camino Frances. The traditional starting point for El Norte is in Irun where we would be in a couple of days, but we wanted to experience walking over the Pyrenees. We quickly went up the road to #55, the Albergue Municipal where we each paid 10€ for our beds for the night which also included breakfast of coffee and toast with butter and jellies. |
I rushed us over to the albergue because I felt there would not be any beds left since we arrived on the late bus from Pamplona, but we quickly realized that there were plenty of beds since it was still early in the season. We settled down and then went out to look for dinner and to visit some shops. It was late and most shops were closing at this time. We found a restaurant right in the center of Carmen had a large salad and I had a pizza with jamon Iberico and we each had a beer and a glass of wine. After eating we had enough time to go to some shops and were able to buy some patches, stickers and Pate for our crossing of the Pyrenees the next day.
At about 9:00 pm we are tired and go to settle down and I see Carmen is on the internet with the girls…. She then tells me she has lost her shirt, I am too tired to react, I thought to myself that we will find it in the morning. |
Waiting for our passports and information at the Acceuil Pelerin
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*The hams are covered in sea salt for a week or two (the exact time mostly depends on the weight of the ham, the rule of thumb is 1 day per two pounds of meat.). The curing room is kept at a temperature of near freezing with the humidity maintained at 80 or 90%.
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