The day started before dawn with breakfast at 06:30. With my walking companions, Jackie and Simon, we had left SJPdP by 07.20. Normally, I would have considered this a very bad thing, but today was a particular day of challenge!

The old town of SJPdP is really very small, and we were soon into the outskirts. There we confronted by what was we dominant theme of today: walking uphill. Sometimes steeply! The first ten minutes gave us a taste of what to expect, several long hard pulls uphill that had us looking down on the town below as the day turned to light.

We were always walking with other pilgrims around us, so today felt very busy, and the quantity of people was sometimes rather intrusive. However, people spread themselves out along the road, and there was some time to think, and to wonder. Here are some of the sights we were graced with:

The break at Orisson was most welcome, but at only eight or so kilometers in, was less than a third of the journey.

The central leg was marked by some lovely walking above the tree line , with delightful and surprising animal and avian companions.

On and on, up we went. The views got more and more spectacular, though the overcast day, while comfortable for walkers, did not help the photographer.

One way of putting this walk in context is to say it was sixteen miles long, and we climbed to an elevation of 1430 metres, which is 300 ft higher than Ben Nevis!

The French/Spanish border passed unmarked. The Col de Lepoeder was our highest point;

Just behind me you see the path down off this high point. It was four more kilometres from here to the Abbey of Roncesvalles, where they accommodate hundreds of thousands of pilgrims per year. We got in at 15:30: it was nearly 17:00 before we got rooms ascribed to us. It felt less than ecumenical to be told at the Pilgrims’ Mass, in two languages, that non-Catholics could not receive communion. But the afternoon included some memorable and touching pastoral conversation.

All in all, a day of great satisfaction for having completed a spectacular day’s journey without any problems. Accommodation is evidently going to be an ongoing challenge because there are still so many pilgrims on the road.