On the Camino de Santiago to the Basque Country

Roncesvalles, Spain, and Aincille, France, May 27-28

Continuing eastward along the Camino de Santiago, we climbed into the Pyrenees after Pamplona and reached Roncesvalles (Ronceveaux in the French “Chanson de Roland”), our last community in Spain. Roland bought the farm here in Charlemagne’s defeat in 788, and the village later became the first stopping point for pilgrims crossing over the Pyrenees pass (1057 m.) from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, the French jumping-off place. Beds in the pilgrim hostel were advertised at 5 euros, and two local restaurants offered three-course dinners for pilgrims with IDs at 8 euros.


Santiago the Pilgrim in church at Roncesvalles

We crossed the pass ourselves and made our way down to St. Jean, a delightful town packed with tourists and pilgrims, where we bought local wine at a street fair from a San Francisco native whose parents had taken her back to her Basque roots for fear she would marry an American. Like the entire region—and the Spanish side of the border as well—the town has a distinctly Basque flavor with signs in two languages and Basque dancing at the fair. However, we heard little Basque on the street, perhaps because of the demands of tourism.


St. Jean-Pied-de-Port


Tasting Basque wine

From St. Jean we continued on a bit further to Aincille (pop. 103), where we had booked one of the 14 rooms attached to a restaurant. It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast to our Burgos truck stop, for “bucolic” doesn’t begin to describe the atmosphere. We got some badly needed exercise by walking on the lightly traveled local roads, and Todd made an excursion on one of the European “Grande Route” footpaths into the lower Pyrenees. The extreme quiet was only broken at mealtimes, for our restaurant attracts patrons from St. Jean and other towns in the area—and understandably so, for the food was excellent. As parents lounged after a meal, boys played a version of jai-alai on Aincille’s municipal court, which seemed to be a feature of almost every village.


Aincille


Basque sheep seen from our hotel room