From where I live there is one train a day to Milton Keynes. I’m always a little surprised by this as I can think of no reason why anyone who lives in my lovely little south coast harbour town would possibly want to go to Milton Keynes. But it exists. Few, other than those obsessed by the arcanities of rail travel, would wish to undertake the journey which, according to the timetable takes about 4 millennia, and offers the sole benefit of not having to change trains. The drivers are presumably selected on the basis of their lack of family ties or any social obligations or needs.
Similarly, a journey from Biarritz to Pamplona is one that no local habitant is likely to ever wish to undertake. Therefore, the existence of even one bus a day between a place that no rational traveler would start from to a place that no one from there would ever wish to go to is, for me, astonishing.
This is of course just a further expression of my continued amazement that pilgrims will book their ‘plane tickets, train tickets, and even their first 900 days accommodation without reference to how those aspirations might be achieved.
May the good ( and bad) gods forbid that life on this poor benighted planet should ever be easy. They’ve never forbade us from looking at a map, a railway timetable or even Godgle in an hope that we could sort our lives out for ourselves.
“If I was going there I wouldn’t start from here” is the finest advice I was ever given