Aurigny
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Francés; Português Central; Português Interior; Primitivo; Português da Costa; Invierno; Gebennensis
I had not planned on my journey from Geneva to SdC, to be completed in sections, taking any more than two calendar years, but the coronavirus disrupted a lot of people's plans, including mine. It's now clear that a trip that started in October 2022 has a better than even chance of earning a third candle on its birthday cake. So I thought it advisable to follow up my completion of the Voie Nive Bidassoa with a few days spent in making inroads on the Norte. I have to be back at work soon, but if I can get anywhere west of Bilbao on this occasion, I'll regard it as a positive contribution.
I'm not sure where's the official start of the trail, but the cathedral in Irun seemed a logical jumping-off point. I arrived in time for part of morning Mass, and was intrigued to find that they were still singing Christmas carols. At the end, the organist played us out with a rendition of O Holy Night that, although displaying considerable technical virtuosity, was delivered at such a tempo that one might have supposed he was trying to catch a train. Afterwards I tracked down the celebrant in the sacristy to ask him for a stamp. After we determined that German was our best common language, he told me that from his perspective, pilgrim numbers have collapsed since the pandemic and show little sign of recovering. Indeed, he had to hunt through his bureau for a sello, eventually coming up with two different ones. He offered me my choice; I told him to pick the one he liked best. So he did; it's taken up about half a page of my credencial.
That mission accomplished, I turned to the matter of finding my way out of town. I'm no longer surprised when this transpires to be a challenge, and so it was on this occasion. Irun opts for an eclectic mixture of markers set into paving stones, mojónes, yellow arrows painted on lamp-posts and kerbstones, and sometimes nothing at all. It wasn't until I passed the threshold of runway 04 at what is comically misnamed San Sebastián International Airport that the waymarking picked up in earnest as the route took a left-hand turn inland.
It's a steady but easy climb from there to the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadelupe, a surprisingly modest edifice for something that has generated such an extensive cult in so many places of the world. After that, though, the pilgrim is offered a choice between the low- and high-level route for the day's run. The weather being glorious--no cloud, no wind, unlimited visibility--I opted for the high-level one. About halfway up the muddy and extraordinarily steep slope that immediately follows, I began to wonder whether I'd made the right choice. I was having to use hands as well as feet to scramble up this endless earthen bank, with a gradient I'd estimate of anything between one in five and one in four. If I'd fallen, I wouldn't have risked injury; it was too soft and boggy for that. But by the same token, I don't think anything could have stopped me from rolling all the way to the bottom, a couple of hundred feet below.
At least I had the advantage of going uphill. Soon I was being passed not only by people making their way down, but by one thrill-seeker who was trying to do it on a mountain-bike. Fortunately better sense prevailed when, after a wild skid that nearly precipitated him head-first over his handlebars and had my heart in my mouth, he managed to pull up and dismount. After that he descended the rest of the hill largely on his rear end, hanging on to one handlebar as the bicycle, now on its side, preceded him.
That, though, was not the limit of the fun and games I was to encounter. At the very top of the hill, where the first of six stone watchtowers is to be found, I came across a young couple in their late teens who had brought with them an iPhone and a set of Bluetooth speakers. I found that I had stumbled into a photo-shoot, in which the young woman stood on an outcrop of rock performing over and over some ten seconds of a complicated dance of which her parents will hardly have approved to the accompaniment of what sounded like a Spanish version of Katy Perry enunciating through an endlessly long cardboard tube. Her boyfriend was there as cameraman and, it appeared, was giving considerably less than satisfaction in that capacity to the actor-director, who stopped continually to tell him all the things he was doing wrong. Michael Cimino or Francis Ford Coppola cannot have demanded more takes, nor expressed themselves as frankly about the limitations of their cinematographers. When I continued on my way they were still at it, leaving me to reflect that Tik Tok has a great deal to answer for.
Much of the remainder of the day is an enjoyable ramble along the clifftops, with excellent views in both directions. The landscape is undulating but unchallenging, with the coast road, the GI-3440, paralleling the trail below and to the right. After a couple of hours, though, it was time to descend, crossing the paved road and making my way down a precipitous and narrow concrete path replete with hairpin bends. Accustomed as I am to the adventurousness of Iberian drivers, I was still taken aback when I was forced off this thoroughfare by a gentleman driving an enormous camper-van uphill. Apparently feeling that he owed me an explanation for nearly crushing me against the adjacent stone wall, he rolled down his window and told me that he had been following the directions of Google Maps. To which I could only reply with empathy, "Say no more."
At the bottom, the pilgrim takes a tiny ferryboat from Pasai Donibane to its somewhat démodé twin town of Pasajes on the western bank of the estuary. The cost for this hundred-metre trip is EUR 1.10, which actually works out as a good deal for the municipal authorities. If calculated on a cost-per-mile basis, a Transatlantic voyage charged at the same rate would be about EUR 65,000 per passenger each way—steerage class, at that.
After landing, the steepest ascent of the day awaits at the northern end of the headland, a climb up an endless series of stone steps to La Plata lighthouse, trying to weave around people who had brought many bottles with them and were sitting on the steps while consuming the contents. When I reached this point, the light was fading, and I had to finish off the remainder of the journey by night-hiking. The comprehensiveness of the waymarking, though, made this an easy business, as did a magnificently clear sky that turned celestial navigation into child's play. The only complication I ran into was when, as I was making my way across the top of Monte Ulia about ninety minutes after nightfall, I was unexpectedly approached out of the darkness by a strange individual who appeared to have been standing there for some time in the hope of spotting passers-by. He told me that he was a member of what he called a "community" that provided accommodation for pilgrims, and invited me to spend the night with them, gratis. I courteously advised him that I had made other plans, but he continued to follow me down the road for about half a kilometre, quizzing me about my movements and intentions. Eventually he stopped and, to be fair to him, pointed me in the right direction for my destination and bade me a good night.
After doing a little Internet searching, it seems that the gentleman in question is a representative of a religious group calling themselves the Twelve Tribes that have established a presence along major hiking routes in the U.S. like the Appalachian Trail and engage in a form of low-key recruiting with the offer of free accommodation to those who pass by. From what I can gather they're fairly harmless, at any rate to those who seek only a bed for the night and desire no further interaction with them. But it was a distinctly odd encounter, and I couldn't help but wonder how any lone female travellers who were approached by this individual in the Stygian blackness might have responded.
At any rate, soon I was heading downhill into central Donostia (the Basque name of the city) or San Sebastián (the Spanish one). The town has no pilgrim hostels and the albergue del juventud was unexpectedly closed, but at this time of year, economical private-sector alternatives readily present themselves. This is one of the most attractive urban districts in Iberia, and it would be hard not to spend a pleasant night there.
I'm not sure where's the official start of the trail, but the cathedral in Irun seemed a logical jumping-off point. I arrived in time for part of morning Mass, and was intrigued to find that they were still singing Christmas carols. At the end, the organist played us out with a rendition of O Holy Night that, although displaying considerable technical virtuosity, was delivered at such a tempo that one might have supposed he was trying to catch a train. Afterwards I tracked down the celebrant in the sacristy to ask him for a stamp. After we determined that German was our best common language, he told me that from his perspective, pilgrim numbers have collapsed since the pandemic and show little sign of recovering. Indeed, he had to hunt through his bureau for a sello, eventually coming up with two different ones. He offered me my choice; I told him to pick the one he liked best. So he did; it's taken up about half a page of my credencial.
That mission accomplished, I turned to the matter of finding my way out of town. I'm no longer surprised when this transpires to be a challenge, and so it was on this occasion. Irun opts for an eclectic mixture of markers set into paving stones, mojónes, yellow arrows painted on lamp-posts and kerbstones, and sometimes nothing at all. It wasn't until I passed the threshold of runway 04 at what is comically misnamed San Sebastián International Airport that the waymarking picked up in earnest as the route took a left-hand turn inland.
It's a steady but easy climb from there to the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadelupe, a surprisingly modest edifice for something that has generated such an extensive cult in so many places of the world. After that, though, the pilgrim is offered a choice between the low- and high-level route for the day's run. The weather being glorious--no cloud, no wind, unlimited visibility--I opted for the high-level one. About halfway up the muddy and extraordinarily steep slope that immediately follows, I began to wonder whether I'd made the right choice. I was having to use hands as well as feet to scramble up this endless earthen bank, with a gradient I'd estimate of anything between one in five and one in four. If I'd fallen, I wouldn't have risked injury; it was too soft and boggy for that. But by the same token, I don't think anything could have stopped me from rolling all the way to the bottom, a couple of hundred feet below.
At least I had the advantage of going uphill. Soon I was being passed not only by people making their way down, but by one thrill-seeker who was trying to do it on a mountain-bike. Fortunately better sense prevailed when, after a wild skid that nearly precipitated him head-first over his handlebars and had my heart in my mouth, he managed to pull up and dismount. After that he descended the rest of the hill largely on his rear end, hanging on to one handlebar as the bicycle, now on its side, preceded him.
That, though, was not the limit of the fun and games I was to encounter. At the very top of the hill, where the first of six stone watchtowers is to be found, I came across a young couple in their late teens who had brought with them an iPhone and a set of Bluetooth speakers. I found that I had stumbled into a photo-shoot, in which the young woman stood on an outcrop of rock performing over and over some ten seconds of a complicated dance of which her parents will hardly have approved to the accompaniment of what sounded like a Spanish version of Katy Perry enunciating through an endlessly long cardboard tube. Her boyfriend was there as cameraman and, it appeared, was giving considerably less than satisfaction in that capacity to the actor-director, who stopped continually to tell him all the things he was doing wrong. Michael Cimino or Francis Ford Coppola cannot have demanded more takes, nor expressed themselves as frankly about the limitations of their cinematographers. When I continued on my way they were still at it, leaving me to reflect that Tik Tok has a great deal to answer for.
Much of the remainder of the day is an enjoyable ramble along the clifftops, with excellent views in both directions. The landscape is undulating but unchallenging, with the coast road, the GI-3440, paralleling the trail below and to the right. After a couple of hours, though, it was time to descend, crossing the paved road and making my way down a precipitous and narrow concrete path replete with hairpin bends. Accustomed as I am to the adventurousness of Iberian drivers, I was still taken aback when I was forced off this thoroughfare by a gentleman driving an enormous camper-van uphill. Apparently feeling that he owed me an explanation for nearly crushing me against the adjacent stone wall, he rolled down his window and told me that he had been following the directions of Google Maps. To which I could only reply with empathy, "Say no more."
At the bottom, the pilgrim takes a tiny ferryboat from Pasai Donibane to its somewhat démodé twin town of Pasajes on the western bank of the estuary. The cost for this hundred-metre trip is EUR 1.10, which actually works out as a good deal for the municipal authorities. If calculated on a cost-per-mile basis, a Transatlantic voyage charged at the same rate would be about EUR 65,000 per passenger each way—steerage class, at that.
After landing, the steepest ascent of the day awaits at the northern end of the headland, a climb up an endless series of stone steps to La Plata lighthouse, trying to weave around people who had brought many bottles with them and were sitting on the steps while consuming the contents. When I reached this point, the light was fading, and I had to finish off the remainder of the journey by night-hiking. The comprehensiveness of the waymarking, though, made this an easy business, as did a magnificently clear sky that turned celestial navigation into child's play. The only complication I ran into was when, as I was making my way across the top of Monte Ulia about ninety minutes after nightfall, I was unexpectedly approached out of the darkness by a strange individual who appeared to have been standing there for some time in the hope of spotting passers-by. He told me that he was a member of what he called a "community" that provided accommodation for pilgrims, and invited me to spend the night with them, gratis. I courteously advised him that I had made other plans, but he continued to follow me down the road for about half a kilometre, quizzing me about my movements and intentions. Eventually he stopped and, to be fair to him, pointed me in the right direction for my destination and bade me a good night.
After doing a little Internet searching, it seems that the gentleman in question is a representative of a religious group calling themselves the Twelve Tribes that have established a presence along major hiking routes in the U.S. like the Appalachian Trail and engage in a form of low-key recruiting with the offer of free accommodation to those who pass by. From what I can gather they're fairly harmless, at any rate to those who seek only a bed for the night and desire no further interaction with them. But it was a distinctly odd encounter, and I couldn't help but wonder how any lone female travellers who were approached by this individual in the Stygian blackness might have responded.
At any rate, soon I was heading downhill into central Donostia (the Basque name of the city) or San Sebastián (the Spanish one). The town has no pilgrim hostels and the albergue del juventud was unexpectedly closed, but at this time of year, economical private-sector alternatives readily present themselves. This is one of the most attractive urban districts in Iberia, and it would be hard not to spend a pleasant night there.
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