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Getting to St. Jean Pied de Port from NZ and then onward to Israel

Stephanie Martin

New Member
Time of past OR future Camino
Camino in Sept/Oct/Nov 2022 (via the French route)
Hi everyone,

Do you know the most economical/easiest way to get to St. Jean Pied de Port. Should I fly to Paris, Madrid or Barcelona? The other thing is I'll be flying out from the airport closest to Santiago de Compostela once I've finished the Camino, so in terms of return airfares, I'm wondering if it's better to fly into Spain (either Madrid/Barcelona) to begin with, then find my way to Pamplona. I'm travelling from New Zealand before I start the Camino. Once I'm done with the Camino in Santiago, I'll be going to Israel for a Holy Land pilgrimage.

Thanks,
Stephanie
 
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Routes
- Paris CDG (fly), Bayonne (fly/train), SJPP(train/taxi) and
- Madrid (fly), Pamplona (train/bus), SJPP (bus/taxi)

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Kiaora - getting to Paris from NZ is (imho) pretty straight forward (Steffy gives a number of options). Getting Israel might be tricky. If you are flying El Al then I think Paris is your best option. But a google search should provide a few more suggestions. Cheers from Oz.
 
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I've travelled to SJPP a couple of different ways, once through Paris, the next through Barcelona. The rest of the way was either by train, or a combination of train and local bus.

When I went through Paris, it was to take advantage of a well priced return air fare that was on offer, and it made sense to plan my other activities around getting back to Paris to take advantage of that. I had similar luck one year going to Norway to do one of the St Olavs Ways, but I have never been that fortunate since.

Rome to Rio shows a few options for flying to Israel from Santiago, none of them direct, and some involve getting to Vigo or Porto first. It is the same for getting from Israel back to NZ. I have no particular expertise here to help you, and there may be nuances about this about which I am completely unaware. You would need to check with your MFAT if you needed advice on this.
 
@Steffy86, kia ora

I have travelled to Spain, twice (see my history below)
2016 to Auckland, then Paris with Singapore, then Lyon and Le Puy-en-Velay with SNCF and finally Saint-Jean on Shank's pony.

2017 to Auckland, then London with South China, then Madrid with Iberia, then bus (could have been train) to my final stop (for me that was Estella - read my blog) - that was almost 48 hours of almost non-stop travel.

As a consequence of my Scots heritage, you can be assured I was looking for the most economical way.

I've been looking at how to return to Europe in March 2023 and noticing that, of the small number of carriers at present, Air New Zealand seems to offer the best rates at this time.

A way to find which carriers are using a particular airport (arrivals and departures) is to look at the website for that airport.

For SCQ Santiago-Rosalia de Castro, this website may help with current movements.

For a more general overview of SCQ, this website might be useful: scroll down to Airlines and destinations.

To arrive at Israel, you will need to do your own homework for the preferred airport(s)

Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui (take care, be strong, confident and patient)
 
Steffy I am planning to come from NZ next year to SJDP and I have been wondering how to do it too. I have also been to Israel but went direct from NZ. No tips to offer on best travel but have some interesting learnings about getting in and out of Israel. Not sure how you do this but maybe you can private message me. Dianne
 
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Generally when I travel to the Camino or to Europe for others reasons I get the cheapest return flight from Australia and then do the rest as side trips with local couriers.
E.g Sydney / London ( my daughter lived there at one time) and then internal plane/train/bus (as others have already described) to wherever else I want to go.
I use skyscanner to look up flights - at the moment indirect flights from Madrid to Tel Aviv seem to be around $AU260 return.
So for me it would depend on what other city I wanted to visit (Paris, Madrid, ???)
And my budget.
 
Skyscanner is best here I think! I’m less familiar with kayak! Maybe start with a. NZ to everywhere search and see what Euro gateways pop up! Flight to Israel maybe cheaper from MAD /BCN than Santiago but play about! Same Israel to NZ. Not sure if round the world fares are still a thing but used to be some great fares with stopovers included !
 
My approach (from Australia) is to fly to Paris (CDG), train to Montparnasse, and stay the night in an AirBnB or hotel, get the BFT (bloody fast train) to Bayonne which connects with the (quite slow but still very comfortable) hill train Bayonne to SJPP and stay the night (or two) before commencing walking...

Simplest return route to Australia is a bus/train from Santiago to Lisbon and fly home from there..
 
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Ive just returned home to NZ... flew Emirates ( awesome airline ) via KL, Dubai and on to Madrid. Got a train to Leon. Pretty easy to get connections to Pamplona from Madrid. I then flew from Santiago back to Madrid for the homeward flights. Flew Ryanair.. super cheap. Good luck and have a great camino!
 
@Steffy86, picking up the note by @Barney12 I have done two searches for mid March 2023. In alphabetical order:

ANZ NZD 1359 18 Mar AKL 08h45 19 Mar MAD 08h20 transit Kong Kong 9 hours total 34h35 hours
EK-- NZD 1377 14 Mar AKL 21h15 19 Mar MAD 12h40 transit Dubai 2 hours total 27h25 hours

As always, you pays your money and you take your choice.

Kia kaha
 
@Steffy86, amazing news!!??

A search a few moments ago gave up this gem:
SIN NZD 1174 16 Mar AKL 15h15 17 Mar MAD 12h45 transit Frankfurt 3 hours total 33h30

Kia māia (be strong)
 
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Thank you for this information Do you know where I can book tickets to Montparnasse and Bayonne, do they operate on the same network?

Also out of curiousity, are they strict on the trains with vaccine certs/masks etc. Most of the world is opening up but not sure about the situation in France. Thank yoU!
 
Steffy86,
You can find French train times at SNCF.com.
As been suggested in above posts you can take a train from CDG airport to the Gare Montparnasse in Paris.

From the Gare Montparnasse you take a high speed TGV train to Bayonne. You must have a reserved ticket for the TGV. The price of the ticket is cheapest the earliest you book it.

A Bayonne you will take a local TER train to Saint Jean Pied de Port.

Do remember that you will be tired after your long flight; take some time to really rest/sleep before you start to walk. You might perhaps stay a day or 2 in Paris.

Happy planning and Bon voyage
 
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The trip from CDG Airport to Montparnasse took two suburban trains - a couple of very helpful marshalls on the train platform at the airport gave me the advice that I needed. There are train ticket vending machines as you exit the airport to the train station - all in french, from memory, but i muddled through - cannot recall if I used cash or credit/travel card (but helpful to have some small denomination euro notes with you at the time). I found Google maps very useful in navigating the Parisian suburban train network - enter starting adn end points, and select 'travel by train' and Google comes up with trains and station information required for the trip...

There are other options for getting from CHG to Montapnasse, including a bus trip, but this has worked for me for two Caminos.

Tickets for the train from Montparnasse to Bayonne and for the train from Bayonne to SJPP can be booked online and printed out before you leave home (a sensible thing to do - makes life immeasurably simpler once you leave home)- as @mspath indicates, go to SCNF.com and everything should be fairly smooth sailing from there. I think that there are other websites also selling tickets, but if SCNF is running the train, why book anywhere else...

As for vaccine certs/masks - sorry - cannot help you there...

And, as @mspath says, a couple of days unwinding in Paris is a good option,,,
 
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