Day 12:Villafranca d'Oca to Burgos

So the plan was to walk to the town about 15km before Burgos.

Starting early we tackled the hill that most pilgrims appeared to be dreading. Rumor was circulating that it would take 3 hours to climb. If that was the case, then why did I have zero memory of it from last year?

I assured Pierre that it wasn't going to be super difficult for us and we started up the hill at 6:15 am. 45 minutes later we reached the top and the next couple of hours (pre-coffee!) were rolling hills through forest, in the dark. For whatever reason, I had a good memory for yellow arrows hidden in the trees, rocks piled into arrows on the road and we didn't get lost.

15km later, we emerged atop a hill and looked down at the land below... the Atapuerca Sierra area is one that is rich in archaeological evidence regarding human existence in this river valley for 1.3 million years! Unfortunately the education center was closed and I was unable to share that little gem with Pierre.

We walked on... the destination was another 6km or so and a decent hill stood between us and it.

At the top of said hill, we spied Burgos in the distance and the Burgos airport, which seemed actually pretty close! Exchanging looks we both came to the same conclusion.  If we can make it to Burgos tonight, we get a free day in the city tomorrow.  And so a new plan was hatched.

Crap! With painful feet we limped past the airport and joined the river trail that implied we were closer to the city center than we were. Probably another 6 km to go, if we could put aside our denial! The feet went into the river... the really, really cold river. Now it was hard to tell if the pain was miles related, or temperature related.  For the next 15 minutes of hiking (about the limit without a break at this point) my feet remained blissfully numb.

Arriving at 5pm, we dragged our sorry selves into an Albergue. It slept 150 pilgrims and we were #145 and #146! Phew! My bunk was on the 6th floor and I had 29 roommates. But... a good shower and a clean mattress was plenty to be grateful for.

Dinner, the grand finale of a long day: Nope. Not a Pilgrim meal! We left the albergue at 6:05 pm and by 6:10 had a page of tapas and glad of vino tinto in hand. Anyone who knows me might have been shocked to see that glass empty by 6:15. And 3 more stops along the street for tapas and red wine followed! Albergue curfew was 10pm. At 9:15pm we waddled into the room and noticed only one of the 30 beds was filed with a sleeping Pilgrim. If I went to bed now, I'd be woken by the nighttime rituals of 27 other pilgrims. Unacceptable. There was only one solution... one more drink at the bar across the road!

I should mention that Laura, our bartender, seemed to like us. She gave us more food and a glass of strawberry gin - which is to die for!!! At this point my feet (which I'd wanted to chop off, 4 hours ago) were feeling fabulous.

Ah.... tomorrow is my first day off in 12 days. I'm going to be a tourist.

NOTE: Today we walked 54,966 steps... almost 25 miles.  A freaking MARATHON with hills and a 16lb pack on my back.

Day 1: Saint Jean to Orisson

Technically only 8km. But I apparently walked 22,320 steps and 11 miles today.

Every journey of a million steps, starts with one and this was mine.

I had forgotten how steep and exhausting it was!

I'd left Mark in Saint Jean, following his orientation tour. There were tears.  Acknowledging that you'll give up everything on Camino is very different from the feeling you get when you actually give up hugging your sweetie, seeing him daily and bring able to chat about your day together over a casual dinner.

I left my love in a car park, blew him a kiss and started my ascent of the Pyrenees. For the next hour I was either alone with my grief or passing people who didn't speak English. My late start @ 10:35 am meant most people were ahead of me.

Then I was joined by a young basque guy. Danny spoke English and had lived in Durango, CO! I enjoyed hearing his perspective as a Basque... the fact that his native language had been forbidden by Franco and now the government was playing a significant role in the preservation of the Basque language and culture, was fascinating to me.

In Orisson, I met Allen from Australia, Pierre from Montreal and Victor from Spain. Discovering that I was in a 6 bed dorm room with 5 retirement aged men, had me almost reach for the Ambien right there and then! What were the chances of no snoring?  (Not great!)

I took a walk up the road for pictures and some quiet time and found my escape on a steep grassy area dotted with ferns. Grasshoppers frequented me and their chirping, and that of the cow bells, drowned out the multilingual conversations driving down the road.

The familiar feeling of the Camino routine, has returned. Arrive, check in, make bed, shower, laundry... relax and put feet up.

I climbed 800 meters today, but I feel good... relaxed, content, warm and clean. There's barely a cloud in the sky but the forecast is for thunderstorms tomorrow. Lucky I'm not made of sugar! Besides, I have "snackies". (The French have learned that word weirdly) and rain gear. Last year I traversed the Pyrenees in sunshine, the photos were amazing.  This year I can only assume they will be amazing in a different way.

There lived a princess...

#2 on the list of fairytale castles... Ussè
This was the one that inspired Sleeping Beauty.

After an hour on 'D-roads', winding through quaint French villages, we arrived at Ussè. The parking lot was small, few cars were in it. We entered through a cottage - a rose covered cottage with geraniums in the window boxes.

Before us; turrets, 3 stories of majestic château, pointy roofs and all. I did feel like is stepped back in time...to a medieval fairytale, complete with old witch, Prince Charming, spells, romance and destiny.

Following the spiral staircase up the turret, we found small rooms, secret passages and views to take your breath away. This castle was different though.  Each room was a painstaking recreation of a moment in time.  The witch casting a spell, princess pricking her finger on a spindle and falling into a 100 year sleep, Prince Charming braving 100 year old morning breath to kiss her awake!

Then there was the attic in all its dusty, cobwebby glory. Chests overflowing with rolled documents, furniture, mirrors and clothes.  The Disney movie theme song to Sleeping Beauty played in a loop and I found myself with the need to dance like I had a pretty gown on. Me... Princess Aurora!

We explored the gardens, stables, Chapel and caves. Inside the caves, traditionally a pave for wine making/fermenting/storing, there were more mannequins! This time though, it looked more like the 1980's had arrived and 3 of their finest were up to no good. Shenanigans involving drinking that wine, I think! Hahaha.

It was hard to leave this place, it's village and general area but we really wanted to be in Bayonne by tonight.

Ooh, don't forget lunch! We stopped in a random village and entered the local bar/cigarette shop. The menu was in French, which is difficult enough.  On top of that it was written in European style cursive and the owners spoke not a word of English. Charades were not cutting it! Starving little foreigners that we were, we put a finger on the menu items and apparently ordered a couple of things.

Out came Marks cold salted fish with veggies, salad. Mine was more suspicious. There was meat for sure. It was mostly cooked and luke warm - shiny and fatty with arteries or something, through out.  Was it chicken giblets??? If it wasn't, then it was poultry organs of another variety and honestly, it doesn't matter too much, the small differences, at some point.

I ate it. Partly to be polite, partly because it was that or nothing.

Something our host called Tiramisu was served next.  It was not Tiramisu! The cream was that delicious heavy whipped sort - with creamy lumps. The lady fingers were missing and instead I found poached pears or similar and a chocolatey sprinkle on top. It was yummy but it was NOT Tiramisu.

We ended in Bayonne. The sun setting over the river as we ate pizza on the patio and washed it down with chocolate cake and wine.

Tomorrow I begin my solo Camino. Today my head and heart filled with an anxiety- excitement mix .

Once upon a time, in a castle far away...

Leaving Paris is apparently just as complicated as arriving.

We threw the key on the counter and pulled the door closed behind us. Our stay in a delightful studio apartment in Paris was over. Thanks Airbnb and our hosts Elise & Laura, for helping us feel right at home this week!

For the last time, we rode the Metro and the train (RER) to Charles de Gaulle Airport and picked up the rental car... A sweet little Peugeot that had somehow made it's way into the "big car" category.  It was in fact, only just big enough to squeeze a suitcase into the trunk, the backpack onto the back seat and Mark and I, upfront. Luckily we had opted for the built-in GPS, because cell signal was abysmal and getting data to load on the phones was a nightmare. Truth be told, we would never have found our way out of the airport, let alone to Versaille, without the nav. system.

The Palace of Versaille. In a word; Overstated.
The ginormous building, surrounded by impressive courtyard and more impressive gardens, was more than any family would need, let alone one that was listening to the French people starve and watching their country go into bankruptcy. Gold gilded and ornate, it boasts apartments for the king, his queen and a couple of their 10 grown kids. (They had 10 kids, but only the oldest was found a match and married off. Apparently when you are raised Catholic and most of your ultra-wealthy peers are Protestant, there comes a problem in the spouse department. Since your life expectancy was around 30 years, you also don't have long to get it together and breed either.)

Don't get me wrong, there was much to like about the Palace of Versaille and my goodness, I learned a lot from the audio tour. But, I wasn't super comfortable amidst the thousands of people bumping and bustling to get a glimpse of the bed King Louis might have slept in and all that gold leaf, marble and priceless art, is not where I'm at home either.

We headed back to the car and began a 250km drive to the Loire Valley. Ever heard of it?
The Loire Valley is of Paris and winds its way along the Loire River toward the west - the Atlantic side of France.

For as long as I can remember, I have been held captive by Hans Christian Anderson style fairy tales and that castle at Disneyland that was designed for Sleeping Beauty. The Loire Valley is where the inspiration for these castles comes from. Luckily for me, I had stumbled upon a "10 best fairy tale castles" website some time ago which had planted the seed in my brain about visiting. My time was here and with Mark in mind, I selected my top 2 fav's and added them to the list of things to do in France this year. Today, we ticked off the first one;

Chenonceau Chateaux
Unless you enter the lush grounds and walk through the garden to get to the castle itself, you are unlikely to see the splendor that awaits. Chenonceau spans the river with a handful of graceful arches and 3 stories of sunlit rooms above. I felt right at home here. The overall size is much smaller than most, the rooms are intimate, flowing, cozy and peaceful. Each has a view of the river, or gardens or the woods that you walked through to get there. Hardly any gold in sight, but instead the tiled floor beneath your feet is worn smooth, the pattern and color gone after years of stomping around and dragging 10 layers of lace and dress and bustle behind you.

The kitchens are located on the lowest level and are pretty awesome. I could almost smell the bread straight from the wood fired oven, the pig roasting on the substantial spit turning in front of an 8 foot open fireplace. Shiny copper pans hung on the walls and pigeons coo'ed gently outside the windows. Magical. I was transported into my own fairy tale and didn't want to leave.

All good things must come to an end though and it was time to find a hotel and food... When was the last time we ate properly???

Sounds simple enough but really, this is what happened:
1. I used Booking.com to find a hotel about 12km from the castle - that apparently is not open after 6:30 pm or doesn't exist. It was 7:30 PM.
2. Google maps took us to the area, told us to turn right (into a field, since no road was there!) failed to turn up a hotel at all and left us in some poor Frenchmans driveway.
3. We finally found a hotel after following a sign in a field... But it was COMPLETE. The hotel owner assured us that just 5 minutes down the road, in Montrichard, there were plenty of other hotels.
4. In Montrichard we struggled to find an open hotel and it was now 8:30 PM.
5. Found the only hotel in town that was open, but were told their restaurant was closing for the night  Not to worry, they said... There are tons of places to eat in the Centre Ville.
6. Centre Ville was almost dead! Most places were closed and we thought for while that supper might come from a local gas station.
7. Found an awesome Italian place, settled in for Osso Bucco, Tiramisu and wine. ONE waitress was doing everything. Bussing, serving, seating and ringing up the bills!!! She was awesome!

From the bottom up

After a late night cruising the city, made even later by my compulsion to blog into the wee hours, we decided to retire the alarm clock and give our weary bodies a chance to catch up naturally.

The result was... walking up after 10 am this morning! Still, a Parisian brunch sitting outside the cafe and watching the world go by is not the worst way to start a day.

We wandered through the city to Notre Dame and tried to get our heads around a 900 year old cathedral, complete with sculpture, stained glass and towering arches. What I loved about Notre Dame was it's simplicity. Unlike many of the other cathedrals I have visited in Europe, this one was fairly basic. I mean it was huge and grand looking, but lacked the gold leafed statues, frescos and treasures that I frequently seen. It was not a showy, opulent display of wealth, but instead was solid, skillfully designed and beautifully built over centuries. Cleverly and thoughtfully added onto and restored over the years. I imagine that in another 900 years it will look similar... despite Paris in general, moving with the times.

Then it was back on the "Hop on, Hop off" bus and our mission became finding the entrance to Paris' catacombs.

Apparently when the cemeteries began overflowing, the city had the bones of 6 million people exhumed and stashed in the underground tunnels that connect the old limestone quarries. Holy crap! That's a lot of creepiness!

The line was long and we were in the good company of  varied international and French tourists. Entertainment came in the form of watching folks screw up their noses at the escaping sewer gases and American girls flailing and shrieking about the occasional wasp. (They were convinced it was the Nutella pastry in hand... I was sure the wasps were attracted to hair products and perfume!)

Then we were in. Another two and a half foot wide stone spiral staircase! Instead of going up, like yesterday's experience, we were going down, down, down. The bowels of Paris awaited us. The tunnels were small and dark. This was not a walking tour for the disabled, young, old or "of nervous disposition" as the sign at the entrance had already warned. It was dimly lit and not too different from the catacombs of days gone by, when the tunnels were the links between the limestone quarries.

Mark was in heaven in his jeans and t-shirt in the cold, dark and damp tunnels. I had a sweater on and the air was already giving me chills! About this time, I realized that while I was a Golden Retriver in my past life (I like nothing more than resting my head in his lap and having it scratched), he was probably... Penicillin!

The catacombs were like nothing you could ever imagine. The 33 year old man who was put in charge of arranging the decomposing and skeletal remains of the 6 million Parisians who were overflowing the cemeteries, decided to make ornate piles and collections of the bones so that they would also become an attraction! It worked... Even though that is maybe the creepiest thing I have heard in a long time. The area is called the L'Ossuaire Municipal. A small part of the 200 miles of catacombs, but nonetheless, a compelling one. And the history of the catacombs never got any less bizarre as time went on. In the 1800's some group of young people decided they would organize a concert down there. Select people were invited to attend via a secret entrance and down below, they were entertained by a 45 piece orchestra who play macabre funeral and death themed classical pieces into the wee hours. Rumor has it that even a "few intrepid ladies" attended and at one point a craniologist gave a lecture that involved using one of the real human skulls as a prop!

The self guided audio tour took about an hour and after climbing another hidden staircase to rejoin the land of the living, we found ourselves about a half mile further down the road and began the search, once again for the nearest Hop on, Hop off bus.

It was now after 5 pm and while it might seem, at this point that we had forgotten about Monna Lisa, we had not. The working plan was to picnic in the Tuilerie Gardens then tour the Louvre after dinner... hopefully avoiding long lines on a Wednesday night (as the wise Google had advised).

The Louvre. Yes, most tourists beeline straight for the Monna Lisa, take her picture then leave. While that wasn't our whole plan, I did head straight there. She is a popular woman and I wanted to see for myself if the rumors were true... Did she really follow you with her eyes? Kinda, yeah! Personally I thought it was more that she turned her whole head and that allowed her eyes to stay on you, but as I write it out in front of me, it seems a little crazy now. Too much moldy air today? Not enough sunshine?

The Louvre, if laid out in a straight line, would stretch 8 miles, so it's fair to say that we didn't explore it all. We stuck to the plan which involved French, Italian and Spanish painters, a lot of sculpture and some other stuff. What struck me the most was the Louvre building itself. It's amazing, breathtaking in fact. I loved it's giant spaces and decorated walls, ceilings and floors. Thousands of people were probably there with us, but at times we found ourselves alone and I wondered if this was how the filmed parts of the DaVinci Code!? Just between you and me, I also found myself intrigued by the security of the art. Perhaps spending just as much time looking at how they secured the paintings, the fine wires embedded in the panes of glass of each window, the cameras and motion detectors etc that were everywhere we could see and I expect a darn host of places we could not see.

When the light began to fade, I wondered out loud if they were dimming the lights to get us to leave, before realizing that most of the light was natural and now, after sunset, it was disappearing fast. With each room we passed through on the way to the exit, it got a bit darker. This was unexpected and I rather loved it. The Louvre at night is AWESOME. There is a mood... quiet, erie and solemn.

And all of a sudden you realize every window has a view too!