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Roncevaux… French named Spanish town – 18km
Roncesvalles, Spain |
Roncesvalles, Spain
Stayed in: Refuge de Peregrinos (Roncesvalles Municipal alb)
Another wow day. We did wake at 5am and worked very hard in the dark to get packed and eat breakfast and be quiet. This is far harder than you think. One item left in your pack could mean you will have to unpack everything!
We 4 literally had the mountain to ourselves! Not a soul! Still uphill and now very windy. We saw groups of wild horses, mountain goats literally covering our path. It was all just so spectacular!
Eventually we began seeing other pilgrims as we stopped to rest several times and take pictures. But it was like seeing old friends as these were all pilgrims at last nights dinner!
We arrived in Roncevalles (or Roncevaux to the French) and checked in by 2:30… The girls had stopped on the trail to read a while and came in later. For an 8.5 hour day of mountain climbing I felt pretty good. I saw so many other folks in serious pain… Thank you, Annette, for suggesting the compression pants! They are fabulous!
We finally met up with the girls, we were on the second floor and they were on the third. We are in the new modern albergue and it is just beautiful. There are 183 beds. The overflow of next 120 pilgrims go to the albergue built in 1200 featured in the movie “the Way”… After that there are barracks. Unbelievable there are that many people! Right now there are about 225 and pilgrims are still coming.
We reserved a spot for the pilgrim dinner…. Soup, main meal of fish or chicken, dessert, water and wine. Very filling but no veggies at all!
Maybe the next town will have a market. A guy set up a van at the top of the mountain when we were hiking through the Pyrenees and we bought bananas, hard boiled eggs and goat cheese. That was our early lunch. We were starved for dinner at 7:00.
The wifi may be turned off on me in one minute so I will say goodnight!
Playlist of short videos from day 2: