3 JUNE 2025
It’s market day in St Jean de Luz! We weren’t going to skip the market to get on the trail (anything to delay the inevitable) and the markets here seem to be more alive and selling really fresh stuff! On top of that, there were one or two stands cooking up Paellas but they had only just started cooking and we’d only just finished breakfast and we weren’t really officially in Spain, but then one could argue, we are in the Basque country!
It was now 9:30 which meant that the Tourist information centre would be open and we could get our Pilgrims credentials stamped. The young man that kindly stamped our credentials spoke very good English and asked where we were from as he had recognised our Australian accent and then excitedly explained to us that he had lived in St Kilda for a few years. We then got the message from our Camino Amigos that we could get our credentials stamped at the church, so off we trotted and were helped by an enthusiastic volunteer parishioner into the inner sanctum to have our credentials stamped once again. She was enthralled by our tales of getting here from Bordeaux to Biarritz by bike, but thought we would be walking all the way to Santiago de Compostela. We just went with the story not wanting to confuse her, but she will be praying for us in 5 weeks time around the time we would reach Santiago if we were actually doing the complete walk!
Sticking to the coast (and not the official Camino route) to get the better views meant we had a number of kilometres walking on the edge of the busy road which wasn’t that much fun, but we were finally rewarded with some stunning lush green forest tracks with very active birds singing there little hearts out!
We nearly made it today without rain, but had to throw on our rain jackets with only a kilometre to go (we had now reached Spain)
Tonight is a birthday celebration. Before departing on our holiday, our good friends gave us their recommendations for eating places in Spain. One of these was a Michelin awarded restaurant called Bar Gran Sol in Hondarribia famous for its Pintxos and not far from where we were staying in Irun. Our choice was validated by the local cab driver who explained that the street he was taking us to had plenty of good Pintxos bars to choose from, but Bar Gran Sol was next level and we weren’t disappointed!
Sangria’s all round and numerous shared Pintxos plates were all delicious and we finished off with what we all agreed was the best dish of them all, being the grilled scallops with their flavours bursting in our mouths.
it was a great night filled with good food and plenty of laughter, a fitting evening to celebrate a birthday!