On the eve of my great adventure

Thankfully, I slept fairly well. a good seven hours or so. Breakfast was quite substantial and i still had two or more hours to waste. So, even though the weather was absolutely miserable. I decided to visit the Cathedral of Bayonne (spires in the picture in the previous post). What a magnificent building. I lit my first candle for the day - and because Lourdes is in this diocese, every church has a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes.

On my way to the train station, there was a very ancient church - simple but glorious. There I lit a candle in front of St Therese, said a prayer in front of the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, said a prayer in front of St Anthony, and another in front of the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Seeing as I had said a prayer in front of St Peter earlier in the Cathedral, I felt like I had covered almost all of the parish!

As it turns out, there has not been a train since the floods of 2009, so I came by bus, stopping at every train station on the way. This was only about half a dozen stops. During the 1 1/2 hour trip, we passed through the most magnificent countryside and through delightful alpine villages.

We arrived about 12.30 and my hostel does not open til 3.30, so I dropped off my backpack and went to the pilgrim welcome centre. The woman there was delighted that I was trying to speak in French, evne though my French is currently horrendous. I really need a good month here to reclaim my Frrench. After grabbing my pilgrim passport, and my first stamp, I set off to explore the town. It is beautiful - once upon a time a garrison for French troops in their battles against the Spanish, now a delightful tourist town.  

Time for lunch... I got the French down-pat for that... a large beer, locally grown duck breast, fries and salad. Magnifique! The pilgrim meal can wait until tomorrow. Having said that, the main course cost only 13 euro!

At 3.30pm, I could finally book into my bed - comfortable enough, but the tiniest bathroom, shared by six people. After washing off the day, I wandered again for a while, returned to my room and rested my feet for a while, then wandered around again. At 7pm there was Mass. I was fortunate enough to find an Italian priest before Mass for confession - something I wanted to do before the whole walk began. Mass was celebrated by the local bishop who had just arrived for a four day pastoral visitation - a very friendly fellow, or so he seemed. I was able to follow the Mass on my phone and amazingly I understood a great part of his homily. The parts of the Mass were chanted in Basque - heavenly! The Basques sing like the Welsh... sure puts home to shame. At the end of the Mass, the pilgrims were invited forward for a special blessing - it was very moving - and then the bishop asked us to pray for him as we went on our Way.

For dinner, I tried a local Basque specialty called Axoa - a very coarsely minced veal coooked with red and green capsicum. Quite tasty - I would definitely have it again.