stage 1
31km
july 31th 2000

we arrived into bayonne after 4 hours on the tgv from gare montparnasse, waited on the platform for the local train to take us the final stretch to st jean pied de port. the scenery was breathtaking as the train climbed along into the pyrenees. vero chatted to a french couple who were to walk to santiago. conversation, excitement and scenery resulted in nobody noticing the train had pulled into, and past the terminus and into the garage! a hectic chase back along the tracks in an attempt to meet our bicycle rental company representative... but, nobody there! no bicycles! vero managed to contact her on her mobile and convinced her to come and collect us. she, along with her baby son, gave us a lift to the portal to the medieval town. we exchanged bicycles for rental and deposit cheques and headed off into the town to find the guest house where we had agreed we could pitch our tent. we found the address and discovered from the owner there was no garden adjoining the house and all their rooms were full! unswayed, we unrolled the sleeping bags and threw them on the floor of their utility room. alarm clock set to 05.45!

we awoke to a lovely day. brought the bicycles outside connected the cycle computer and headed on our way. we met two professional looking cyclists who told us to make our way to roncevalles along the n135. they had attempted napoleon's route over the pyrenees and turned back after 4 km! anxiously, we headed off. after a short time we crossed the border post into spain. the guardia civil were out in force, this the day after eta had assasinated the former governor of the region. we stopped in arneguy and took out some pesetas on my hole-in-the-wall card. long live the euro! then off again... around the corner and upwards. 3,5 hours of zig-zag 7% slope up the 1,000m to the summet and chapel at alto de ibaneta. difficult hours man and machine struggling against gravity. it was no surprise to hear miguel indurain grew nearby and praciced on these slopes!

at the chapel, we had a picnic and recovered a while before freewheeling into roncevalles and the monastery to collect our credencial, the passport for the camino. we chatted to the francophone monk, had a look around replenished water bottles and headed further downhill, through some small picturesque towns towards the camp-site at urrobi, safe in the knowledge that the most difficult day of cycling was over and we were on our way... .:-)

stage 2
45km
august 1st 2000

we pitched our tent, and went for a swim in the river. afterwards, the emergency pasta got ransacked and we went to the bar for a beer. maurice's one and only spanish sentence being further embellished to become <> fluent! you'll never catch an irishman thirsty. i noticed the long-haired mechanic tending to his bicylce had a strange twang to his spanish. indeed, the wolverhampton dialect of castillian! we chatted to jim for a few hours and his having cycled from santiago was full of advice on where to stop, where to go and what to do.

another early morning and a record (longest) hour and a half to get up, have breakfast and get on the bikes. we tried the off-road route of the camino before plumping for the easier roadway. muscles warm up and aches ease.

we stop for coffee and a bun at 11.00. back on the bikes and off to pamplona, arriving just after onset of siesta. maurice's suggested visit to the train station, to dump our stuff in lockers, proves one of his less inspired. we head back into town, finding the tourist office and a list of <>. after our first real encounter with the spanish language, vero has successfully negotiated a room and space for the bicycles in the landlady's office. we head off to the supermarket to buy giant spanish peaches and replenish the pasta store. leaving that in the room, we go to the department store and, after innumerable trips up and down the four floors of the shop, we find the swimsuit section and a new bikini for veronique. wandering around the town, we walk the ramparts, reminscing about saint malo of summer 1999. we go to a restaurant and have the menu del dia, the only faux pas being ordering rose wine as vino tinto sounded suspicious! then off to bed before day three and the feared reaction of our muscles to all the cycling.

stage 3
44km
august 2nd 2000

up @06.00 and quickly on our way towards the alberque (hostel for camino travellers) to get our credencials stamped. we stop along the way in the parque de la taconera to have breakfast, then cycle past the star shaped ruins of the citadel defences and to the hostel. we bump into carlos, spanish and michelle, swiss, again whom we had chatted to yesterday on the camino. we will conitnue to bump into them along the way to santiago. she has decided to continue on the camino despite originally intending to leave for switzerland at pamplona. the camino spirit has drawn her in! we cycle off together past the university and into the countryside before parting. carlos has travelled the camino eight times by bike already and has invaluable advice.we travel through the open countryside from hilltop village to another, stopping for water at their public foutains. fresh air and exercise! cant beat it. we stop in ciraqui for lunch and a snooze on the roman road.

we arrive in estella again at siesta time. we will soon learn to negotiate the siesta succesfully. now to find where we are to stay the night. dissention and tiredness in the ranks, and a split vote between the alberque and the camp-site. maurice nearly mowed on his bicylce by another crazy spanish driver (on the wrong side of the road). campsite prevails however, and both of us go for a swim.

food.

dodo.

stage 4
60km
august 3rd 2000

next morning and we are getting a bit faster at the preparations. vero has been told of the fountain of wine at the monastery village of irache. we head away from the camino to visit it. the well is dry,but we bump into an eccentric american fruit farmer from southern california, who is walking the camino to provide content for his radio show at home. vero obliges and gives her opinions on the state of (in)humanity into his tape recorder.

the fountain has been replenished but we hurry on our way conscious that having taken the first three days easy, we have over one and a half stages on the 15-day cycle itinerary to make up. we have only 14 days available, and we both agree it would be nice to make up time in this flatter section, maybe leaving more time to see santiago.

we arrive into logrono approaching 14.00. the men of the city are filling the shaded bars to talk football, politics and get out of the heat. it also helps to bide the time while their lunch is prepared at home! we find a nice cafe and have spanish tortilla, glass of wine and a coffee before leaving on our way to navarette, and its campsite. a rush of blood to maurice's head while passing the beautifully restored medieval alberque results in our staying, not there, but on the concrete floor of the hall under the library! a belgian couple complete with pack donkey, evict an italian woman, together with her three children from the refuge as unworthy of the charitable facility, to stunned, yet sadly unacting pilgrims (us included) and warden.

we go to mass in the church of the assumption with its amazing huge baroque gilded altar. then a snack sitting at the bull-ring and off to sleeping bags and the orchestre de ronfleurs!

stage 5
59km
august 4th 2000

getting up at 06.00, bad moods are pervasive. vero has not slept a wink, instead reading the gospel according to luc! 60 people snoring in unison failed to impress not just her! a fellow traveller promises himself a hotel and a real bed tonight. he hasnt spent 50 weeks working to spend his holidays in such conditions!

we leave on our way. a long days cycle ahead of us. we reach najera at 08.00 and stop for a <> in a small cafe. the river and colour of the red mountains provide a beautiful backdrop. tiredness dictates we travel most of the day on the n120 road, though we do go through santo domingo de la calzada and belorado. after belorado, we see the beautiful church an houses carved out of the mountain. the land is flat, but the heat is sapping and we are glad to know that the tented refugio is not so far away.

arriving in villafranca montes del oca, we find a friendly welcome in the tented village refuge. we pitch our tent safe in the knowledge that maurice is to be the only <> to disrupt veronique's sleep tonight!

stage 6
73km
august 5th 2000

after a nice long nights sleep, we have breakfast and head off on our way. the tented village has a nice atmosphere. the neighbouring tent contains a french couple who trained for 2 weeks before starting the camino on bicycles, yet are still recovering from the first day over the pyrenees on the route napoleon. they are travelling by road only since then. we are relieved we did not try that and have been able to travel as much as possible on the camino.

we stop in burgos. maurice spots a bakery and stocks up on cream buns. tourists admire the cathedral and while veronique talks to guilers on the phone, maurice strikes up conversation with gerard from savoie. he has already walked from there and is now taking an extra month off work to continue to santiago. we discuss the camino and pilgrimage with him. his thought for the day is that it is the pilgrims that make the camino and not vice versa.

the n120 rapidly approaches motorway standard and speed on the far side of burgos- fast route to portugal. scary to go along, but we persist until finally leaving it taking local roads to reach iglesias and rejoining the camino, we head for hontanas and castrojeriz. we arrive at the camp site at 15.00 and are told of impending siesta. when the tent is put up we walk the length of the town, visiting chuches and stumbling upon a medieval market complete with jesters.

later, in the camp site, vero is unimpressed by the price of tuna in the shop, but makes contact with a dutch couple who have seen us back in urrobi and will bump into again in santiago and in between. they have 6 weeks to travel from home to santiago. the blugaz cylinder runs out, so no teesane tonight!

stage 7
82km
august 6th 2000

today is to be long hot flat day. the countryside is largely dry, yet irrigation schemes produce oases. the canal del castilla provides the farmers the necessary water for their maize and spinach. outside the cultivated areas, the landscape resembles desert more and more as we approach sahagun. the stone architecture is gradually replaced by baked brick.

just outside sahagun, we are overtaken by an american on a bicycle carrying his panier bags in his hands, rather than their carriers. he asks us if he is on the right road for sahagun. we answer and he flies past us, looking a strange charecter. he stops beside the <> sign, props his bike against it, takes a photo of them both, back on bike and off like the wind, bags in hand. strange.

arriving at 13.30 at the shagun campsite, we discover its bar/ restaurant to be doing a roaring trade. we have a drink and relax waiting for the reception to reopen at 17.00. we meet two dutch sisters who also have cycled from holland. we get a place in the quiet end of the campsite, get organised and head into the city in a vain attempt to buy blugaz. we cycle around the town and have tapas and a glass of wine in a bar before heading back to the tent.

stage 8
54km
august 7th 2000

we follow the camino and n120 to calzada del coto where we part from the camino in the mistaken belief that the n120 follows the route.we scratch heads, but do not alter course when we see the dutch girls vere off before our eyes! we travel through nice countryside, and stop in a small village for a coke and each our sandwiches. the locals are all dressed up and heading to the bar after mass for the weekly social gathering, much like rural ireland on a sunday, yet meetings are outside the direct rays of the sun. a puppy dog makes friend with us while we have lunch outside, before heading off again. we reappraise our route after a while and are back on course in mansilla de las mulas, where we get to the ferreteria and buy an orange can of blugaz!

from here on in, we follow the camino to leon, arriving at 15.00. leon is a bustling, dense, modern city. we go to the tourist office at 17.00, get a list of pensione and find a nice welcome from the mutilingual landlady. we head off into town to try and replace vero's broken mudguard and buy a sleeping mat for the surprisingly cold spanish nights in the tent. maurice invests in his very special telekom drinking bottle! we eat a huge menu del peregreno, vino tinto included, at a restaurant. the serving were so big we wont have to eat for days!

back to the pension where we notice the alarm clock is still on irish time and starts a few days thought about whether we were getting up a 05.00 or 06.00 for the last 7 days!

stage 9
51km
august 8th 2000

we leave leon, a city we felt very at home in, stopping outside the beautiful hostal de san marco, to have breakfast.

after a morning's cycling, we arrive in astorga, the envisaged end of stage. it is market day, and we travel through it as the stall holders are packing up. there are many tourists admiring the beautiful cathedral, even more are queueing outside to visit an exhibition inside. we cycle around looking for the alberque, which we find, but are told they only let walkers stay, so we get out the guide book and maps on the terrasse of a cafe and try to find out from the locals, if they know somewhere we can pitch our tent.

we decide to continue on a few kilometres to a small village, murias de rechivaldo, and hope we will be able to stay there. we cover the ground along a dirt road section of the camino, and discover the alberque in the village to be unoccupied apart from a german and french couple, also pilgrims. the french had met the hostel warden in the local bar and he should be along <>! we are hopeful that we can pitch our tents, as the hostel has a small garden.

we chat to the german couple and discover that they met 3 years ago while travelling the camino and are currently travelling to santiago from freiburg as their honeymoon! i suppose if they are still talking to each other in santiago, they are made for each other!

the warden surfaces and allows us to pitch our tent, which we do and then make our way into the village, which is virtually unchanged since medieval times. we sit outside the warden's bar and chat to the assembled pilgrims. while there, michelle rushes up to us on her bike and askes us if we have seen carlos in the last few days, as she has lost him! we cannot help her, and she disappears of over the horizon.

stage 10
63km
august 9th 2000

we get up slowly today and are on the road at 09.00. a veritable lie-in! we pass the french couple at 09.45. but it is not until 10.30 and rabanal del camino that we meet the germans. they have walked their stage for the day already. indeed, we stumble into them coming out of the shop have done their shopping. rabanal is an interesting town having been nearly derelict until recently but now coming back to life with the english charity, the confraternity of saint james, taking over and restoring the village's church and alberque thus breathing life back into the place. villages along the camino benefit from the pilgrim's travels as they have since medieval times. after rabanal the way climbs, going through manjarin- a near deserted village with just one inhabitant who mans the alberque, and towards the cruz de ferro where we stop for a break, photo-shoot and chat with two english guys who are walking from leon and already feeling the heat and pressure.

ponferrada is just around the corner. as we cycle through the town, it becomes apparent why one of maurice's panier bags has been hopping off the carrier all day, much to his amusement. a rivet is missing, making it impossible to continue without repairs. we discuss the possibilities over lunch, and begin the wait till the town springs back to life after the siesta. we have an ice cream outside a bar and ask the owner if he has any suggestions for mending the bag. he, amazingly, speaks french as had worked for four years in lille during the sixties. he suggests the local cordonnier may be able to help, so off we go only to discover that he has spent a few years near hamburg and speaks fluent german! we chat for a while while he replaced the rivet expertly and refuses payment. we then go to the local supermarket where the girl at the cash register realises veronique's plight (trying to knock the shopping list into maurice's thick skull) and offers to free her, by minding both bikes and paniers beside her till. maurice's planned menu for tonight of six chocolate cream buns falls apart thanks to a well-meaning gesture! he still manages to be allowed buy powder that transforms water into lemon and orange juice (although only if he carries it). it is 19.00 and veronique notices the temperature has fallen to 42c! then up on the bikes and along the road to the campsite fifteen km onwards, and a well earned swim in the river there.

stage 11
58km
august 10th 2000

we leave the camping el bierzo and try to find our way back onto the camino, cutting across country and finding villafranca del bierzo. maurice has a coffee, while all around are cyclists eating eating breakfast, waiting for the mountains up to el cebreiro to shrink.

we head off to see what awaits us! we follow the valley, with the new a coruna motorway jumping from hill to hill above our heads. at vega de valcarece, a local advises us to continue on the camino along the valley and avoid the N6. 5 kilometres shorter- but steeper! 11 kilometres of climbing face us, and arriving at the summet in laguna de castilla is a beautiful experience. cool water in the fountain and nice relaxed people in the refuge. onwards, and up to el cebreiro, another 2 km off road to arrive in the ultimate tourist village. we bump into the carlos and michelle againl in a small restaurant. they have found each other again and are to continue onto santiago together. they advise us to have the <> a local delicasy and then disappear.

afterwards, we have a siesta in the grounds of the church, and at 18.00 feel refreshed enough to go further. we descend and climb twice more. at the latter summet, we have a celebratory drink! and freewheel 10km down into triacastela. we camp outside the refuge after a friendly welcome from out fellow celts in galicia.

stage 12
40km
august 11th 2000

we leave triacastela about 09.00 and ventured further into galicia. the landcape reminds both of us of home- green and hilly. the weather is cooler, the grass greener- we could be in brest or wicklow!

we pass through the village of samos with its beautiful monastery.

we make our way to the camp site of the banks of the reservoir after arriving in portomarin. later we walk around the medieval town, which was rebuilt further up the banks of the river, allowing the reservoir be built in the sixties. it is strange to walk under the towns medieval arcade, the stones making up the street facade were hewn hundreds of years ago, yet the vaults above it are flat and formed in concrete. we stop for a beer on the square and then venture back to the tent for a wholesome nourishing pasta meal.

stage 13
56km
august 12th 2000

the next morning, we leave portomarin cylcing towards what the guide calls a "col". we climb for the next few kilometres. both our bodies are much fitter than at the start, yet neither of our bodies seem to have the vigour required to make short work of it. we could go all out and reach santiago today, or take it easy and split the remaining stretch.

we opt for the latter, calling a halt at ribadiso de riba, where we camp in the garden of the magnificently renovated former fifteenth century hospital. the campsite is shared with some sheep who look over the fence and stick their tongues out at maurice spots carlos and michelle, and leave them in each other's company. later, we listen to a group of spanish teenagers having a sing along outside the dormitory before retiring to our tent for the last time. tomorrow, we promise to stay in a pension.

stage 14
45km
august 13th 2000

we wake up to a nice, misty day reminiscent of home. we are spurred on by a desire to reach snatiago as early as possible, but we decide to stop for a break, coffee in arca. then its up and down a few more hills and into santiago. we pass the airport and continue along the narrow country road for another 10km before arriving at the tourist office on the city's outskirts. vero goes in to get the accomodation list and city map. we find a lovely pension. it is only 11.30 and guests are still leaving their rooms, but ours is cleaned while we chat to the owner and fill in the questions on the registration form. we dry off and go into the city to have a look around. we find the office to get our compstela, the certificate to say we have travelled the pilgrimage route. we queue for only half an hour amongst many happy and proud people who have also successfully completed the distance. we then go to get something to eat before going to mass in the cathedral. the cathedral is dramatically baroque and gilded it verges on the kitsch. many people queue to kiss specific statues for reasons not readily apparent. we buy an english guide book for maurice and commemorative mugs to remind us of the great time each of us had on the camino. the town is full of happy pilgrims and tourists.

next morning we get up at 07.00 and head to the offices of the transport company to hand in and say goodbye to our bicycles.. then we go to the train station travelling to hendaye over the border in france, and then the night train to paris, gare austerlitz.