Well it's been a month since we started walking in France and here we go spending our last night in France at Auberge Orisson, part way up the mountain. The walk over the top of the mountain called The Napoleon Route is about 27 kilometers, depending upon whose map you're looking at. Apparently Napoleon used to prefer this route over the lower route via Valcarlos because it is open and therefore potential attackers could be seen from a distance. At any rate this is going into the foothills ( or is it the thighhills?) of the Pyrenees and it cannot be denied that it is definitely uppish! This is not the highest peak we will cross but it is the biggest elevation gain in one day. The Napoleon Route has an elevation gain of just over 1200 meters. Today we will walk just over 8 kilometers and climb about 500 meters of that distance.
I had to laugh at this sign in hours instead of kilometers. Just who is the mysterious person who walks at this pace? The language you may not recognize on these signs is the Basque language, known to us as Euskara. Almost all signs in Basque country have their language on them.
We started out before my son and daughter-in-law because they wanted to be well rested as they were going to walk close to 30 kilometers and from 250 to over 1450 meters in elevation gain this day. they would stay in Burguete for two nights while we took our two stages to get over the mountain.
In the end, they caught up to us at Orisson where we had coffee and tea before they pressed on for their final 20+kilometers.
It was a spectacular day going this far up the mountain! Not for the same reasons that Napoleon did, we enjoyed the wide open views, where the green hills rolled down behind and beside us with houses and little villages nestled in the valleys. White clouds hung low in the valleys creating a magical scene as we climbed higher. When I first walked this route in 2003, there was a paved road up to Huntto- an auberge which is about 4 kilometers up the hill, where I stayed with 20 others before Orisson was built. But now the single tracked paved road extends up to approximately kilometer 15. Not an improvement from my perspective, but no doubt is from a variety of others. In addition to the auberges at Huntto and Orisson, a variety of chambre d'hôtes have sprung up in recent years so there are quite a few places to chose from if you want a head start on the hill. Reservations though are recommended for most times. Here's one sign we saw on the way up.
We arrived at Orisson in time for lunch so had lots of time to sit around and chat with people we had met. What an international mixture - Spanish, French, Germans, Danish, Irish, Koreans, a young woman from Iceland, Australians, Americans and, of course, Canadians. There were at least 4 other Canadians so I think the our contingent was the largest. There was a sit down dinner for about 40. The inimitable Jean-Jacques was chief cook and entertainment. He certainly knows his business and is doing a great job of it! Good food, lots of laughs, comfortable beds (as much as metal bunk beds ever can be) and a good sleep set us up for the walk over the top in the morning.
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