Jimandi

Our traditional route to start the Camino has been: jet to Madrid (MAD)- train to Pamplona – bus to St Jean Pied de Port (SJPDP).

Our Camino 2023 route is: jet to Paris (CDG) – TGV to Bayonne/Barritz – local train to SJPDP.

We have several reasons for making this change. First, before we decided to do another Camino, our original destination was Provence France, requiring the leasing of a Eurodrive auto in Paris for use to, from and getting around in Provence. Second, we dislike the 90 minute, motion-sickness-inducing bus ride from Pamplona to SJPDP. Third, we love to travel on European trains, especially the TGV.

So… our planning is complete, backpacks are packed and in a few minutes, our friend, Caren, will give us a ride to the airport to begin Camino 2023.

The 7hr 45 min flight to Paris was uneventful. However, the plane was fully packed, which eliminated any chance for being comfortable enough to sleep. Customs clearance at CDG was smooth, punctual and automated. We breathed a sigh of relief when we found our backpacks waiting for us in baggage claim, as soon as we cleared customs.

Without leaving CDG Terminal 2, we followed the signage to the adjacent RER terminal. After less than a 10 minute walk, we easily bought two tickets (17€ ea) without having to wait in line and boarded the next train which had just arrived. It left for Paris central 7 minutes later. After a 22 minute ride we exited at Denfert Rochereau, connected with the metro, then two exits later, disembarked at Gare Montparnasse.

Our only glitch for yesterday/todays’s very long and potentially glitchful journey came at the very end. While still in the Metro for Gare Montparnesse, Jim entered our hotel, Hotel de Paris Montparnesse, into his Google Maps App expecting to have a nice footpath plotted from our location to our hotel. Well, our T-Mobile signal was so weak that all we got was a silly little spinning wheel. Jim, frustrated, asked a nearby fruit stand owner for help, who, in turn, struggled using his phone to get directions, finally settling for directions to a Montparnesse Tour ( “Tower” in French).

So, we walked to the “Tour” but hit a dead end when the pleasantly helpful concierge said there was no hotel in the Tour and had never heard of our hotel. We finally went into our “battle mode”, Linda agreeing to station herself at a strategic location on a wall adjacent to the Tour to establish a a base, while carefully guarding our two large backpacks and two smaller carry-ons. Jim, now unburdened by various packs, set out to find our hotel.

Just when it appeared that no French person or any other person inhabiting the Montparnesse area had the slightest idea where our hotel was, Jim spotted a bus driver puffing on some kind of combustible during his break, his bus all locked up to interested riders. Using his best, remaining command of the local language, Jim asked the critical question. The driver, rubbing his chin said he wasn’t sure, but… and Jim inserted, “and it’s a trois étoiles” (3 stars) … which gave the driver the confidence to point in a specific direction from where we were standing, he thought!

Jim thanked him, again in immaculate French politesse and headed in that direction. Miraculously, a half block from where Linda was perched, we located our hotel. Totally wiped out at this point, we checked in to our hotel and crashed for a bit.

Last November, while soaking up the Caribbean sun, we decided we’d like to do another Camino. Yes, we had just finished Camino 2022 in October, our 8th, since 2012 … but the operative question was when. We looked at each other, realizing that as seasoned septuagenarians, we needed to decide sooner rather than later.

We had already made reservations to spend September 2023 in Provence France (Vaison la Romaine) during the wine harvest. So, we began our planning around that trip and in tandem to avoid the cost of two European flights.

We also had booked trips to our favorite island for May/June and Oct/Nov, so that left July and August for the Camino. July and August are the peak months for Camino traffic, so we began making reservations for places to stay and transportation in January and completed the final bookings the last day of April.

Being seasoned “pilgrims”, we know what we need to take and since it will have to fit in our backpacks, we have already gathered most of our stuff and set it aside. For simplicity, this will also include a few additional items for our month in France after the Camino.

We’re leaving for our beach trip next week and will wait until we return in late June to finalize loading our backpacks and beginning Camino 2023 in early July.

Our trip home from Madrid went smoothly. Our daughter, Amy, met us at CLT and took us to our awaiting car. After a brief chat and some nice hugs, we belted up and made the 80 mile drive back to Greenville and found our home just the way we left it…. our Camino complete.

Camino 2022 was just what the doctor might have ordered. All our post-Covid symptoms were eradicated by the first several weeks of our walk and by the time we reached Santiago, we had regained our pre-pandemic status, both mentally and physically.

In summary, for us, the Camino not only “provides” it “heals”. Buen Camino.

We donned our backpacks at 7:00 and walked the half-mile or so down to the train station. Our train leaves at 9:09 so we found a seat and ordered breakfast in the station cafeteria.

As we were slow-walking breakfast a couple asked if it was ok to sit at our table and of course, we said sure. It turns out that they were from Charlotte and had walked the Camino from Sarria. They were traveling with a group.

We chatted until the train arrived, boarded, and made the 4 hr trip to Madrid without incident. The trip from Santiago to Madrid is interesting because of the dramatic changes in scenery. Unfortunately it was quite foggy most of the trip so the view was limited. This was not a problem for us because our memories were still strong from previous trips.

We also had some interesting seat mates on the train. When we purchased our tickets to Madrid, the train was nearly sold out, so we didn’t get to sit together, not even in the same railcar. Linda sat across from a man who had recently had 7 surgeries on his arm and shoulder and several pins were visibly sticking out of his arm. Jim sat next to an American lady who had just finished the Camino and was living in French Polynesia. She had been living on a sailboat and ended up in her current home because she was sailing near Panana when the pandemic hit and after sailing to various islands in the Pacific, Polynesia was the only place she could gain entry.

We didn’t see the Charlotte couple again until exiting the train at the Madrid-Chamartin station, waved from a short distance and assumed we’d see them again on the plane trip home.

Yuwen, our friend whom we met at the Pamplona bus station in August,

….finished the Camino several weeks ahead of us and we have been staying in contact via email. She went on to Finistere ( the “end of the earth”) after finishing in Santiago and then traveled to Madrid where she had been staying in a hostel.

We learned in an earlier email that Yuwen was leaving for Barcelona on 11 October. When we made our final reservations and changed our return day from Madrid to the 12th, we contacted her and made plans for a rendezvous in Madrid.

Yuwen found a restaurant near the Chamartin station and we met her there a few minutes after our arrival and had lunch together.

After lunch, we said our goodbyes , promised to keep in touch via email and parted at the metro station entrance, where Yuwen left for her hostel and we got a taxi to our hotel.

We stayed at the Madrid Hilton Airport. We like the hotel, it has free, short transport to MAD and we used Hilton Honors point to significantly reduce the cost. It’s at least our 4th or 5th stay!

We spent two nights in Madrid and continued our transition process.

We walked up to the old city to photograph the Catedral. Every time we have been here before the Cathedral has been under some sort of repair both inside and out. Today it was at its finest and the Saturday crowds were taking it all in.

Below are some photographic highlights of what we saw:

We’re enjoying our Camino decompression, but also looking forward to returning home.

Walked Today: 6.9 mi /Camino2022: 348 mi

We left Lavacolla at 6:45 hoping to avoid a long wait in line for our Compostelas once we arrived at the Santiago Catedral.

It was very dark as we walked across the bridge over the legendary stream, but saw no bathers this morning… maybe all pilgrims have warm showers these days.

Only a handful of pilgrims passed us during the 3.5 miles on the way to the Santiago city limits… all in the dark. Also, each of the three bars we had visited for breakfast in previous years along the way to Santiago, and everything else, was not open, by 8:30!

We finally got breakfast in the cafeteria for a huge futbol camp on the edge of a now bustling Santiago, with people on the way to work, cars filling the streets and young, very young pilgrims emerging from everywhere.

The final 3 plus mile walk to the old part of the city and the Catedral was familiar and exhilarating as we were about to reach our destination after 52 days and 348 miles of walking.

We walked past the Catedral and on to the pilgrim’s office which opened at 10:00 but when arrived at 10:15, had only several pilgrims congregating at the entrance. We were given our place-in-line tickets, #111 and #112, got into line only to notice that #86 was now being called to receive their compostela!

We made it!!

We waited in line for about 10 minutes, chatting, smiling, laughing with similarly happy pilgrims, saw our numbers called, submitted our credentials with stamps from points visited across northern Spain since August 15 and just moments later were presented with our 4th Compostela for the Camino de Santiago de Compostela!

We purchased a tube (2€) for carrying our documents home, left the office, gave each other a high five and walked to a nearby bar to celebrate with a cup of hot chocolate.

At 11:00 we decided to return tomorrow to visit the Catedral, take photos and revisit a now familiar old Santiago. Our hotel room not likely to be available til noon or later, we began the 20 minute walk to the train station to purchase tickets for our ride to Madrid, three days from now.

After purchasing our tickets, we made our way back toward the old city, stopping at our hotel and we able to check-in at 11:45.

We got familiar with our room and the Nest Style Hotel for a few minutes. Since our backpacks won’t arrive until around 2pm, we headed out again to get our bearings established for our new base for the next three days … found a nice restaurant for lunch. We had a delicious meal and subsequently identified a good place to return during our next two days in Santiago.

As we were returning to our hotel we spotted the transport van, which probably had our packs. We got to the hotel lobby, took a seat and three minutes later, the van driver walked into the lobby carrying our packs. We flagged him down and he delivered them to where we were sitting!

We returned, with everything we own, in Spain, to our room and began a somewhat bizarre afternoon with nothing we have to do for tomorrow.

So this concludes our blog for today. We’ll return tomorrow and Sunday with photos and reflections, etc.

Life is good!