[Gocamino] Transport to St Jean Peid de Port.

[Tim]

Hi,
    I decided today to write this, it's been on my mind for sometime.  
By way of introduction I own and run a B & B on the side of the Camino 
in St Jean Peid de Port.  The reason for writing this today is that I 
have two customers kicking their heels in Pamplona for the day whilst 
waiting for the one bus to Roncevalles from where they will get a taxi 
to bring them to me to start on the Camino the next day.  The bus, the 
one and only bus, does not leave until 18.00 hours this evening and they 
will not be here until about 20.00 at a guess.
    The whole question of getting to St Jean Pied de Port from Spain, is 
difficult, the problem is historic.  After the Napoleonic War the 
Spanish had very little liking for communicating with their neighbours 
to the North, in fact they went out of their way to make it difficult by 
building their railways to a different gauge and not building many 
roads.  Franco made it worse because he hated the Basque people, starved 
the whole region of development and it was only after his death that 
transport links began to be built.  Most of them were roads, the 
railways are still a work in progress. 
    Enough history.  The best and cheapest way to get to St Jean Pied de 
Port is by train from St Esprit Station in Bayonne.  If you are flying 
in via the UK or Northern Europe that's not too difficult because there 
are flights into Biarritz and the STAB no 6 bus goes direct to the 
station for under EUR2.  It's when you come in via Madrid that your 
problems start.  You can get a train from Madrid Atocha to Irun or 
Pamplona.  The service to Irun takes over seven hours and it's almost 
impossible to make the journey in one day because the connections don't 
happen,.  You can get the train into Pamplona, then the bus to 
Roncevalles and then the taxi to St Jean Pied de Port but again it's a 
long day.   Or you can fly to Pamplona, get the number 21 bus into the 
town centre, then the bus to Roncevalles.  Two other alternatives come up.
    The first is to book flights into San Sebastian (Hondarriba) from 
Madrid, if you do this when you make your booking into Madrid and 
specify a 'round trip'  you can get these flights for as low as $50 each 
way.  The second suggestion is to hire a car and drive from Madrid to 
the same airport San Sebastian (Hondarriba) the Spanish car hire 
companies of National/Atesa do one way hire with no pick up charge for 
leaving the car at Hondarriba and this is probably the cheapest route if 
there is more than one person making the trip.  Once at Hondarriba 
Airport get a taxi to the SNCF station at Hendaye, it's no more than 
three miles, just across the border in France, from there it's a 25 
minute train journey to Bayonne and the train up the valley to St Jean 
Pied de Port.
     I've attached a copy of the current timetable for the Bayonne St 
Jean Pied de Port service and will shortly be putting a page on my 
website Errecaldia <http://errecaldia.com> with the above information 
and links to STAB, National/Atesa and the like.
    I hope that this is of use to you all.
Regards
Tim Proctor