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Dear Elyn,<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>More informed experience can take this further, but I can offer the beginning of an answer. <BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>> <TT>How far is it from Lourdes to St. Jean (or Somport) on hiking/pilgrimage<BR>
> trails?<BR>
> Elyn<BR>
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Pau is a day's round trip bike ride from Lourdes. I learned this from a friend who made the trip some years ago. Pau is also the 7:30 a.m (mas or menos) stop on the overnight train from Paris and a place one could begin walking toward Somport. My wife and I chose to take the local train to Oloron and then bus into the low mountains so we had our first day's walk over Somport Pass to Canfranc. As I remember I calculated it would have been about four additional days walk from Pau. So there's a guess - five solid days from Lourdes to Canfranc. <BR>
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Somport Pass, by the way, is a wonderful way to come into Spain. We also loved Jaca and found the walk to Puenta La Reina where this route joins the St. Jean-Roncesvalles-Pamplon route quite wonderful. We were walking last May which I'll always recall easily because we were in Jaca from our 26th wedding anniversary - May 10th.<BR>
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love,<BR>
donald <BR>
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