Saint John Pied De Port

This is the starting point for the Camino Frances. A little town at the bottom of France and the base point of the passage over the Pyrenees mountains and into Spain.

I arrived by mountain train with about 50 other hikers from all over the world. A short walk uphill towards the albergue (Gite in french) Makila- a rather luxurious albergue. It didnt open til 3pm so I had two hours to sit and have a vin de rouge grande.

I then got registered for the camino and got settled in my room in the albergue. Only three other people shared the room. A very shy South Korean girl called Sonya who could barely speak a word of english so we communicated in hand signals and that dumb english accent you put on when chatting to foreigners. Next was Colin from Sweden. Gentleman but by jaysus he loved to talk and spoke good english. Then Sue from Australia. Sue was a pleasant girl about my age and loved hiking. When we all went out for a drink later, Sue became our translator as she spoke fluent spanish. We had a nice walk around town then hit the hay early as the albergue shut closed at 8pm. It was a nice first day.