Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port

Woke this morning to a little bit of a shocker - it was raining, and it continued to rain and then, it rained some more! That wasn’t in the script, I can tell you. Never mind, we take the rough with the smooth and after breakfast and a shower, made our way (back on ourselves actually) to St Jean Pied de Port. We left Oleron and took a slightly different route and headed to Mauleon-Licharre and then turning left onto the main D933 to our destination. This would have been a stunningly beautiful route, but for the heavy rain and mist making it impossible to see the vista. The plan may well be to retrace our steps so we can enjoy the views another day - fingers crossed. All the way along the route you see signs for cyclists, showing them the inclines and how long they have to go to reach the summit. It really was a steep climb and the drops were pretty sheer beyond the crash barriers 😳 No worries though and we stopped to gather provisions and made our way to our Aire, recommended to us by Jane - thanks Jane, although we have not ventured far today due to the weather, it all looks fabulous. Campsite 9€ per night including electricity and water. This is the first time we have seen a warden drive around and he was checking our parking tickets. I have put loads of pictures on FB and Instagram to give an overview of the place, but I didn’t walk very far with the dog really so can only be excited for what we get to see tomorrow. As I said yesterday, this is the start of the Camino Way so I’m intrigued.

When we are travelling, one of the things that we’ve noticed are the washing machine, dryer facilities on garage forecourts. Just like water, air etc this is a service anyone can use. When you are travelling, it doesn’t matter how posh or not so posh your Moho is, a washing machine is not included! So these services are invaluable. They stand alone and are not housed in a ‘room’. They have a little surround but that’s it. Not needed to use one yet, but who knows. Back to you tomorrow after a full day hopefully. Nighty night