Day 0

Today was Day 0, travel day from London to Saint-jean-pied-de-port (bit of a mouthful). Having finished work on Tuesday, completed a case study interview on Wednesday and frantically packing my life on Thursday, handing the keys back today I was exhausted.

Biarritz was stop one, which is a beautiful little city I wish I had been to before! An incredible weekend destination. My uber driver Julien told me it used to be an old fishing village until Napolen built a palace on the hill (lovely building) and then all the rich folk followed. But the town has a really cool beach and cosst line, which weirdly reminds me of Australia, even having a grass outcrop/knoll thing which is super similar to Balmoral Beach. Strange.

Given we were in the French bit of the Basque country, you knew the food would be good. I had some Basque sausage with mash and a Bordeaux red. A very decent start foodwise.

Having read "don't pack your fears" and desperately trying to pack a light bag (i think I'm at about 7-8 kgs) I had to make my first purchase of a belt for my hiking pants. Napoleon's gone but Louis Vuitton and the crew moved in (actually all have Mansions there) so the belt is but expensive.

I had an hour stopver in Bayonne, just enough to see the Cathedral and wonder around town. Also lovely and French, surprise surprise.

And then it was onto the train, on which I quickly feel asleep. Upon waking however I made my first Camino friends, having a chat with a lovely Austrian couple and a guy from Siciliy. Seeing someone else with a pack seems to make it perfectly acceptable to strike up a conversation, much easier than expected.

This continued at the albergue. I walked into what looks like a three story house and there's about 12 people having dinner around a table chatting. Im served a plate of food , quick intros done, and then had some incredible wholesome chat with these total strangers. Absolute cross section of society, with me potentially the youngest, but from all over the world. And run by an Aussie called Axe whose been in France for 40 years now!

I'm exhausted in bed but having at least got a glimpse into the routine for the next 34 days it doesn't seem so unknown and I've not had any other glaring holes in my packing so far. Getting pretty excited.もっと詳しく