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Do know! Thanks for another walking idea.Great idea! Do you know you can detour SJPdP and take the Batzan across the Pyrenees to Zubiri.
We’re there any other accommodation options in Cambo? Planning on arriving next weekDAY 2: BAYONNE TO CAMBO LES BAINES (24km):
Great day of walking, though it was a bit muggy and warm out. The walk along the Nive River is incredibly tranquil and (today) pilgrim-free. Rick M is correct: so much for the pilgrim hordes of Easter! Flat nearly all the way to our destination, but a bit hilly after Ustaritz where the Batzan separates from our path.
Contrary to past posts and a published guide for the Route of the Nive, there does appear to be albuerges and gîtes on this path (especially in Ustaritz) but they did not appear to be open yet as it’s not quite walking season in this region. We are staying at the Hotel Trinquet (named after the pelota court attached to the building!) but there are no pilgrim dinners or stays here - in short, dinner at 9pm anyone?
There are some stunning church interiors (two are from the mid-1600s and have two and three stories of balconies around the interior walls, picture-perfect villages, and some nice encounters with farm animals (though a loose bull stared us down in the middle of one village and we had to help yell at him with the rancher to get him back into the corral!)
I highly recommend this route to SJPdP as a good shakedown of your equipment as well as a warmup for the Pyrenees crossing. An alternative would be to head for Espelette (home of all things red pepper) instead of Cambo, but we chose here due to the nearby thermal baths.
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Thanks for the posts @Vacajoe but if you really want to put it under proper name then you have to know it's "la Nive" not "le Nive"...
Final Notes:
+ I will do a single post summing up the Nive River route under its proper name (Voie de Le Nive) so it’s easier to access for future walkers.
...
“Did you use a guide, as the provided by http://vppyr.free.fr ? Or just followed the signposts and the help of your smartphone?”
I used that guide and another trip report I found online, but they both were out of date re: some more recent developments. Both helped, but so did the signage and maps.me. For instance, the “farmer’s field” one used to cross by opening a pallet gate is now a housing track and a private driveway and definitely locked - a detour around it added a km or so. Other directions such as, “Turn left at the house with the green shutters” is unintentionally hilarious in a town where half the houses have them and they’ve likely been repainted since the guide was published 15 years ago! Finally, the Camino Santiago scallop shell indicators are quite small and so infrequent in some spots that it’s either purposeful removal to keep people off of certain tracks, petty vandalism, or willful souvenir collectors.
All in all, though, you cannot REALLY get lost; you may take detours, have to retrace your steps, and ask for directions, but you WILL reach SJPdP.
+ I will do a single post summing up the Nive River route under its proper name (Voie de Le Nive) so it’s easier to access for future walkers.
+ It’s a pleasantly challenging route in terms of terrain, food, accommodations, etc, but a little planning and a smartphone make it easily doable.
Perhaps look at Macaye instead of La Place - it’s a dot of a village, but we had one of the best meals of all our travels in a tiny restaurant there (it’s the only one there, so you won’t miss it!). There were two small B&Bs here, too. It’s a 16km walk between Ustaritz and there, with Helette a nice walk the next day through sparsely populated countryside. You could stop for lunch in Cambo les Bains, perhaps, on the way to Macaye.
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