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<TITLE>Re: from Oloron to Somport</TITLE>
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Dear Leslie,<BR>
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Last May my wife and I walked from Urdos (a little further on in the hills than Oloron, and a bus trip from the Oloron Ste. Marie train stop which is the end of the train line) and over Somport Pass. We loved the walk. It was very, very beautiful. We saw no other pilgrims. From Urdos we walked along the highway for a couple of kilometers until we saw the Camino (Chemin de Saint Jacques) signed off to the left and we found ourselves on a clearly marked good path. It was early in the season and there had been a storm so we did pass a tree or two that was partly blocking the path. When we came out to the highway again a good distance further on, there was construction that obscured the way forward and we had to look around to find where the path continued. In early May there was about six to eight inches of snow on the ground for the last couple of of kilometers. As you approach the pass the peaks of the Pyrenees are quite jagged and spectacular, but the path is not too difficult and didn't feel dangerous or percipitous to us. - - -By comparison, we walked <BR>
Hermit Trail and Kaibab Trail, two of the paths at Grand Canyon this May that were a degree of difficulty beyond Bright Angel Trail, and found them beautiful, but occasionally breath-taking in the immediacy of their view of the canyon below.- - - Back to the Camino: the walk down to Canfranc was also very beautiful, as was the next day from Canfranc walking down the river gorge. It reminded me of Yosemite sometimes, and parts of the Rockies other times. <BR>
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This Saturday my son and I will begin at Urdos again. In 1998 I walked the St. Jean route (Valcarlos not the Napoleanic one) with my daughter Maria as we described in our book, <I>My Father, My Daughter, Pilgrims on the Road to Santiago. </I>Walking Somport last May was simply wanting to try something new. This time it's because it's the way I like to go. <BR>
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If you go this route, be sure to visit the museum of frescoes in the Cathedral in Jaca. They're quite wonderful to see, and in succeeding days you'll walk past the now abandoned ermitas (country chapels) where most of the frescoes came from, so it comes to feel very much like part of the pilgrimage to have seen the frescoes. <BR>
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love,<BR>
donald<BR>
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(Donald Schell)
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