San Sebastián

Our first walking day - We wake to the sound of music, lights and a voice telling us it’s time to get up, its 5:57am. Sweaty, bleary eyed and tired we get ourselves ready and head downstairs for coffee and toast. We hit the trail at 8am and before we know it we have made it to the outskirts of Irun. We are walking in a rural setting in an upwards direction and its beautiful. There are quite a few pilgrims on the trail today and as we hit our stride, we seem to spread out nicely. Not too long into our walk the rain starts, lightly at first like a nice refreshing mist, but it soon picks up in intensity and starts hammering us for the next couple of hours, we end up pretty soaked. The rain does eventually stop and we do dry out. We are all hoping and praying that this rain is falling where all the fires are burning across Spain. As we continue on I am lulled into a false sense of ease as we make our way to Paisaia, and it isn’t until we get to the last few kms that I begin to understand my mistake. Over the years countless pilgrims have told me just how hard the first few days of the Camino del Norte are and now, I understand. The climb out of Irun wasn’t too bad, it’s the down hill into Pasaia that is the problem, it seems to go on forever, just ask my toes, ankles, knees and hips! Eventually we make it to the lovely little albergue in Pasaia it’s already 1:30pm. This albergue only has room for 14 pilgrims and there are 9 pilgrims already lined up, we decide to head down into the main square to get our selves something to eat and drink as we are famished and thirsty. What we be will be, if we miss out on staying at this lovely little albergue, then we will just have to walk on to San Sebastián. We end up having lunch at this amazing little seafood restaurant, Lisa and I decide to share a garlic prawn casserole and some patatas bravas, we also drink wine, coffee and eat cheesecake for dessert, our meal was exceptional! George has sardines, flan and a cervesa. We then start our next leg to San Sebastián - we can’t bare the thought of walking up all those stairs just to find out that there is no room left at the albergue, so we call it and head to the ferry to take us to the other side of the inlet. Then comes the climb - George has named it “the stairway to heaven” I think I will call it the stairway to the stars as it will be dark by the time we get to the top. Once we have finally conquered the stairsway it’s not too long before we are walking on a lovely dirt path following the coast line with spectacular views. We hope everyday will be like this. We eventually get into San Sebastián, it has been a fabulous day, but we are all buggered and need to rest our weary bodies.Read more