One of our last meals in France was prepared by a professor of French (lady standing at the back) and her husband, hosts of a B&B in a beautifully renovated, but remote, farmhouse. It was a gourmet feast of Basque specialties, shared with two pilgrim friends and two French couples taking a “long weekend” (French term) for the Armistice Day (May 8) and Feast of the Ascension (May 10) holidays.

There followed an 18 km walk through the constant clouds and drizzle to the gateway town of St Jean Pied de Port, from which in 2015 we began our laborious trek over the Pyrenees.

There were more pilgrims on this last day than we had seen the previous six days, perhaps 10 in all, including the little doggy getting a free ride from his master. Behind him you can see the contraption that another pilgrim was dragging instead of carrying his pack in his back.

So au revoir to France. We will soon be catching a bus to a train to another train to a taxi, to hopefully arrive tonight in Irun, Spain, the start of our next phase, the Camino del Norte — the camino along the northern coast of Spain. Dare we hope for some breaks in the rainy weather???

Monday, May 7 we saw a rare sight: a sunny day! And we decided to eschew the scenic walking path through the woods (and the mud) by walking on the road. (We did walk in the wrong direction at one point, adding 2 unnecessary kilometers, but at least they were dry underfoot!

Overnight we stayed at the picturesque town of Mauleon. As with our first Camino (2015) we have become friends with fellow pilgrims, two Canadians, a Frenchman and a woman from Miami. They are each delightful people on their own spiritual journey. And they are the only pilgrims we’ve seen so far, as this route in the French Pyrenees has been little travelled so far. (Possibly because of the wet spring and the mud…?)

Today (May 8) we shared the road with a flock of sheep whose shepherd rode a mini bike. The sheep were running flat out, their little hooves clattering over the pavement. Ed thinks they were cold because recently shorn. Our road took us over a mountain top where fog blew across thicker and thicker until we could only see a few metres ahead. Signs promised “un vue panoramique” but we saw none.

La boue means “mud,” and that is the headline for our first three days of walking west from Lourdes. Day One brought us to Lestelle-Betharam and the whole day was rainy and cold. Day Two’s destination was the hamlet of Arudy; it was cool and cloudy.

On Day Three the forecast was the best yet: sunny and 72 degrees. But the path, running through pastures and forests, was all too often a slippery descent through churned up mud to a slippery stream bed. Locals say this has been one of the wettest springs in memory. The sound of rushing water is an accompaniment to bird song and occasional early crickets!

One highlight was catching up with a bunch of white water rafters fully togged with wet suits and helmets. They gathered on the Pont du Diable (Devil’s Bridge) and, one by one, jumped off with blood curdling yells 25 feet into the greenish cold swirling water below. When they saw us crossing the bridge, they invited us to jump, but we declined.

Jumping from Devil’s Bridge

We arrived in Lourdes on Tuesday after a long, uncomfortable plane ride to Paris and then a 5 hour layover to our flight to Pau which is about 50 Km from Lourdes. There were no taxis at the Pau airport. We waited at the taxi stand in the cool wind for 40 minutes to get a ride to the town where the train would take us to Lourdes. After checking into the hotel we walked to the Sanctuaire de Notre Dame to look around. We had little sleep over the prior 40 hours but wanted to see where Bernadette Soubirous had her many apparitions with Mary, the mother of Jesus. We spent a little time there and went back to the hotel for dinner and to bed at 8:30. We had a very good sleep.

On Wednesday we woke up at 8:00, almost 12 hours of restorative sleep. After breakfast and washing our clothes and hanging them up to dry we went out to visit the Sanctuaire which is celebrating the 160th anniversary of the first apparition. We walked with thousands of pilgrims. Among the pilgrims were hundreds of people in wheelchairs who were there to take the waters in hope of a miracle cure or a spiritual cleansing.

We went to the Grotto where Mary instructed Bernadette to go and drink from a spring and, while there had not been one there before, a spring of pure water appeared. Bernadette understood that the water was placed there to confirm to her that Mary HAD appeared and spoken to her. We prayed at the Grotto and meditated on her conversations with a simple peasant girl and the healings that occurred there, including 63 medically certified miraculous cures. We went to the Fuentes and filled a bottle with this spring’s water. We drank some of the holy water and said a prayer there.

After a late lunch we went back to the Sanctuaire for Mass. We were there when the 5:00 pm procession was starting. The procession wound over the river, through the Sanctuaire’s extensive grounds to large underground basilica. There were 100+ people in wheelchairs and 1000+ people in the procession, accompanied on the loudspeaker by a choir singing hymns in many languages. It was a humbling sight to see so many people with such strong faith asking Mary and her Son to help them in their distress. I will attach a video showing the procession when we get back to the US.

We were able to secure our Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrim passports at the Sanctuaire. Our Camino has officially started.

The pictures show the Grotto and the niche where Bernadette prayed with and spoke with Mary, Notre Dame.

On April 30 we’ll be flying to Europe — provided Air France and the French transport workers and others cooperate! Our return last summer from the Caminho Portugues from Lisbon to Santiago de Campostela, accompanied by wonderful visits with friends in Vigo and Madrid Spain was followed by a stretch of medical challenges. Great weather and lots of golf and visitors in Florida over the winter was interrupted by ten days of bitter cold in DC and New England.

So now we are about to depart once again and don’t feel as though we’ve had enough time to prepare, emotionally at least.

In consideration of having a limited amount of spring pilgrimage weather before we need to return to the U.S., we have decided to combine a week’s walking from Lourdes, through southern France, to the foothills of the Pyrenees. Then we’ll hop (by transport this time, not by foot) to Irun on the Spain side for two weeks of walking along the Camino del Norte.

The Camino del Norte threads through Basque country along the Bay of Biscay, in view of the Atlantic ocean and is reputed to be the most beautiful of the dozens of camino routes to Santiago de Campostela. It is much less travelled than the “Camino Francese” which was our first path in 2015. The section starting in Lourdes will be the first time we’ve walked in France, and the first time we have used a local travel service to reserve our nightly accomodations and forward our backpacks ahead to the next stop.

We are looking forward to absorbing the quiet spirit of ancient places and to meeting holy people along this way.  And we’ll be carrying thoughts of our family and friends with us to lighten our steps.

We’ve been home for a few weeks now and glad to enjoy its familiar comforts. Not all is comfortable:  our favorite Vietnamese restaurant/home away from home, Nam-Viet, closed its Cleveland Park location while we were away. And Ed has visited multiple doctors and will undergo outpatient surgery to remove benign lipomas from his back.  We are relieved, at least, to have a likely resolution of the pain and discomfort that shadowed the entire caminho for him.

So in this final blog post, we salute all you faithful reader- friends and share a few more favorite photos as we continue to turn over in our hearts and minds all that we experienced, learned, shared and enjoyed — new friends and old, deepening and maturing relationships, centuries of human activity (beautiful and reprehensible) crystalized in stone and glass, vegetables cultivated by women bent over short-handled hoes, fruits of the sea pulled out of the brine only hours ago, and so much more…

Coming to Ireland is like coming to our second home. Our Northern Ireland cousins, Tony and Mary, met us in Dublin for the Vermeer show at the National Gallery and an excellent two-woman show titled “Post-Script” at the Abbey’s Peacock Theatre ( all arrangements credited to Mary). Then we spent two delicious days of cossetting by them in Derry. Tonight we are in Ballymote, County Sligo, Republic of Ireland, renewing our friendship with cousins Mary Therese and John Kerins and assorted bovine friends (see photo). In a few days, God willing, we’ll be home. Stay tuned for at least one more post.

Record-breaking temperatures of 104-105 degrees Fahrenheit made our week in Madrid unforgettable. Even more unforgettable was the amazing hospitality of our friends, Julio and Luz, whom we met on the Camino in 2015. They opened their home, a sixth floor apartment in the Four Towers section of Madrid, to us, along with their delightful family and their sense of culture, history and gastronomy. 

We visited the Prado and other Madrid highlights, and made day trips to El  Escorial, Avila and Toledo. Another highlight of a different sort was a stop at the Official Real Madrid shop.

It was a special privilege to join the 36th birthday celebration of Julio and Luz’s twin sons.

After an interlude with family in Ireland, we’ll be returning to DC.

A day and a half in Barcelona gives us a glimpse of the beautiful visions of Antonin Gaudi and his Catalan compatriots.

One evening we enjoyed Catalan flamenco music and dance cradled in a Palace of music and beauty. 

We thought this Camino was ending in Santiago but should have known better — the journey and the experience goes on. The Camino experience teaches us to be more open and alert to our fellow travellers on the road of life.

The photo below shows Anne enjoying three joys in Santiago: clean clothes washed in a machine rather than by hand, wearing a dress, and just having made a new friend. The friend is a Galician Spaniard who speaks English like a Brit and who started the Lavanderia (laundry) as a way to interact with Camino pilgrims. He even featured us on his Facebook page sceighteen@fatoldsun.com