Monday 13th July, Nantes, Britagne/Brittany Not so much a detailed blog (I don't think, I've not written it yet), but a brief photo essay of the highlights of the last few days, with a bit if commentary. St Jean to Bordeaux via Biarritz The early part of the day went well according to plan. Left SJPdP (and the fabulous Les Chemins d'Elika - highly recommended if you ever happen to be there) via the train to Bayonne and another to Biarritz, and then via Bolt (an Uber-like sys

Vingt-quatrième jour - Friday 10th July, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port Massive thunder and lightning storm at 1am; glad we weren't out walking. Lazy day today. Resting. Wandering the old city and walls. No story, just a few photos. An ever so slightly social end to our Camino last night (Thursday), on the lovely terrace of the very nice Le Relais de la Nive restaurant. From left Cathy from Sydney, J, me and Simone from the UK. (Earlier that night we'd caught up with American couple

Subtitle: 5,000,000 steps Vingt-troisième jour – terminer - Thursday 9th July, Larceveau - Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port - 19.5 klms (final total approx 425) Our trekking poles are a little worse for wear, and with just a little hyperbole I made some comment that they had walked a million miles with us. Janet did some quick processing and came up with the assessment that they'd probably walked 5 million steps!! Now let's not get too precise, but if you think about it, my very first

Vingt-deuxième jour - Wednesday 8th July, Aroue (Etcharry) - Larceveau - 24.4 klms (running total approx 406.2) We were presented with options today. Head down this route to visit this town, that route to see that monument. We chose only one set of options - what would be shortest and easiest!! According to the guidebook the longest set of options turned the day into a "strenuous" walk of over 30klms with an up/down altitude variance of some 800 metres. Ah, no thanks. The sh

Vingt-et-unième jour - Tuesday 7th July, Navarrenx - Aroue - 21.6 klms (running total approx 381.8) I don't even know if "pen-penultimate" is a real word, but hey, it's my blog and if I want to mangle my English/Latin well, who cares? I've written about previously, and indeed experienced multiple times, that the last few klms of any day's walk are usually the hardest. It's a mental more than a physical thing - yes after 20 klms the feet hurt and one is generally tired (and ho

Vingtième jour - Monday 6th July, Sauvelade - Navarrenx - 14.4 klms (running total approx 360.2) Early in the walk we passed many signs with various philosophical statements or sayings. They were all in French, and whilst I translated a couple just for fun, most of them are simply sitting in my phone as a "tomorrow" project. And then today, very early into the day, I passed the sign "Another World is Truly Possible", which gave rise to today's title. It's a gentle exhortatio

Dix-neuvième jour - Friday 3rd July, Arthez-de-Béarn - Sauvelade - 20.6 klms (running total approx 345.9) There's a maxim for/on the Camino Frances that the first third is for the body, the next third is for the mind and the last third is for the spirit or the soul. Given that a maxim is a generally accepted truth, as opposed to an absolute or scientific truth, I hold the third-third-third maxim to be a pretty accurate rule of thumb. For the Camino Frances. Or the Via de la P

Dix-huitième jour - Saturday 4th July, Pomps - Arthez-de-Béarn - 10.0 klms (running total approx 325.3) The "official" guidebook (nothing's really official, you can do what you like) has recent past and future walking stages set at around 30klms/day. Whilst we've had two days approaching this number, and one to come, actually planning to have multiple days at these distances seemed like a bridge too far to me. So wherever possible I chopped them in half. It doesn't always wor

Dix-septième jour - Friday 3rd July, Arzacq-Arraziguet - Pomps - 21.4 klms (running total approx 315.3) I think I'll start today with a PPR (a Podiatric Progress Report 🤔) for the record. With 6 days and around 100 klms to go there is a possibility that the feet will actually get me to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. How's that for confidence??? Now let me start properly. Staying in a 15th C "hotel" as we did last night was a high point, trumped as it were by the meals which our ho