Itxassou, Laruns, and to Ainsa
31 Mar
to 2 Apr 2026
At the
end of the last day in the previous Post – we crossed the border to Bonjour, Merci
and irritable French drivers – where waiting at a stop sign for a car to pass
on a through road, can lead to a horn blast from the car behind. And these drivers
are also quite good at judging the space needed to pass – the only consequence
being that they may cut in just a few metres after passing – which can be a
little unsettling at times. We need not comment on the role of speed limits –
as they seem to have none (unless a radar camera is hear). Too harsh… maybe… so
call it just an observation!
But on
a different matter… the French landscape is very different to what we have seen
in Spain So far – no evidence of derelict
buildings or graffiti ( other than the French place names being blanked out
above the Basque names, and calls for independence!). The houses have grey sloping
rooves, many with attic windows and coloured shutters. No apartments yet, but
to be fair we are travelling through rural areas. Beautiful landscapes with
well cared for properties. No mountains to be seen in this low cloud sadly.
It was not long though, after crossing the border, that we began to see road signs with St JEAN PIED de PORT on them… we are heading towards the “beginning” of this adventure! But we ended that day, 31 km short of that town, at Itxassou (pronounced “itsasu”) – the Basque language seem to make a lot of use of the letter ”X” – which Google’s AI tool informs me is because it is the standardized way to represent the "sh" sound, which is very common in the language.
There
is not much for us to say about Itxassou (which means “the place where broom
abounds) – it was just a place to spend a night and have a proper shower after
a couple of nights at the Autocaravanning site in Bilbao (which did not provide
showers). The shower in BF is “acceptable” if really necessary… but we don’t choose
to use it unless that is the case!
We
left Itxassou, heading for Laruns via St Jean Pied de Port – our “beginnings”
for this adventure, because the reason for this travel is to walk the Camino
from St Jean… and so it will be a “beginning”
for us. The day was again “rainy”… with
some very heavy showers – but the countryside was beautiful, even in the rain –
as Spring is arriving here, and the trees are beginning to bud, with all of
their various colours of green – that look so fresh and new at this time of
their growth cycle.
So,
onwards to St Jean Pied de Port (literally "Saint John [at the] Foot of
[the] Pass") is the old capital of the traditional Basque province of
Lower Navarre and classified among the Most Beautiful Villages of France in
2016. It is the second most popular starting point of the French Way (Camino
Francés) to Santiago de Compostela. In 2024 over 32,000 pilgrims headed from
this town in the direction of Santiago de Compostela, and out of all people on
the French Way who got the certificate of accomplishment about 14% started in
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
The original town at nearby Saint-Jean-le-Vieux was razed to the ground in 1177 by the troops of Richard the Lionheart after a siege (the English, the English…!). The Kings of Navarre re-founded the town on its present site shortly afterwards. Many of the buildings are very old, built of pink and grey schist. There is a 14th Century Gothic Church (Notre-Dame-du-Bout-du-Pont) by the Porte d'Espagne. The original was built by Sancho the Strong of Navarre to commemorate the 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa where Moorish dominance of Spain was undermined. It has a 15th Century Wall too…
The main street – seen on so many YouTube clips – and in films is actually quite steep!
And in 15 days' time – this will be us…
While
the Pilgrims Office was closed (we were there at an unreasonable time – 12.30PM…)
till 2PM… we can check two last items off our “to buy” list – a wide brimmed
sun hat for Michael… and a small knife to cut through those Crusty Baguettes
that we will be buying along the way for lunch (and to slice the cheese)!
Karilyn is really looking forward to this aspect of our likely menu!! But when they say “the Camino provides”…
perhaps in one sense they had St Jean in mind… the shops there were stocked
with what must have been many hundreds of Walking Poles, as well as Sleeping
bags (600gm was a common size) and everything else that you might need, to
outfit your journey.
The
only “exciting” thing that happened on our way to Laruns – was stopping to
investigate some the Calhau de Teberno Dolmen (a Neolithic megalithic tomb) near
Buzy..
As it
had had enough of the rain (it had rained on most days since the day we got to
Potes), we decided to move to the other side of the Pyrenes (i.e. the south
side). With this in mind we set the navigation for the town of Ainsa … back in
Spain. Our route from Laruns would take us over the Col du Somport – (1,720m –
that is 5,640 feet in the old units). On leaving Laruns, the sign for the Pass
was green, and said “Col ouvert” … but it was raining (at Laruns), and the
temperature was around 10C, and Laruns is at 500m elevation… so at 1,700m the temperature
was going to be near 0C (based on a lapse rate estimate)… which implied “snow
The
road up towards the Col was quite narrow in paces – with a cliff on one side,
and a stone “guard rail” on the other – to protect one from the ravine there…
The water in the rushing river was clear as a bell … and the trees continued to demonstrate their early spring plumage.
As we got higher though, green turned to white.
And then it runed to really a lot of white… and a lot of wind!
And then, when we were just 1km away from the top of the pass – we came to a halt, as there were three cars in front of us that had stopped – we didn’t investigate (it was near whiteout at that point) but the guess is that at least the first in the queue needed to put chains on.
We decided that “retreat” was the best way “forward”… so after delicately backing BF down the road to a place where we thought we could turn around – we beat a retreat down the mountain with the view that we would stop at a convenient place for lunch – and ponder our options. The first option was to “wait for a while”… just in case it cleared. We had hope, as cars were coming down from the pass (that we didn’t recall having first gone up the pass!). One stopped, we enquired of the state of the road and were strongly advised not to attempt it. So we read a book for a while… and just as we were about to make a decision up along the road came a snow plough! Decision made, we tucked in straight behind him… and the wind had died down… and it was no longer snowing…
Up close...
And so we came to the top of the Col du Somport, at 1,720m – and in so doing, saved us from a very very long detour north before we could again go south to reach Ainsa. As we descended into sunshine we passed ski resort after ski resort… and in the one below, I count 27 Mobile Homes parked in front of the “chalets”… so a lot of skiers seem to own motorhomes too!
We also passed a number of hydro lakes, which were nearly empty – we wonder why. There has been a sever drought in the Pyrenes since 2021 – but perhaps they are low, in order to capture spring snow melt water – in which case it would just be a water management decision to lower the lakes over winter.
We
were soon back in sunshine…
By the time we reached Ainsa – it was “hot”… the air temperature was 17C, and the sun was very bright.
Our
campsite in Ainsa (Camping Pena Montanesa) even had a heated indoor pool – in which
we enjoyed a swim among all the children…The reason - yes it was a nice way to end the day... but also, because if we were at our normal location the day before Easter, we would be swimming in Lake Taupo!
The next post will talk about our time in Ainsa - and what followed thereafter - but you will have to wait a few more days for that!
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