Letter to friends - Why do we start in Roncesvalles?

Dear all,

We start our pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela on June 11th from Roncesvalles. Somewhere in the mountains, just across the border between France and Spain. The first few days we will be cycling up and down out of the Pyrenees.

The real pilgrim starts his journey from home. Close the frontdoor behind you, hide the key under the flowerpot and off you go. From Bucharest that would mean 3.000 kilometers of cycling. Maybe later sometime. Now we don’t have the patience. Nor the time.

St Jean Pied du Port probably is the 2nd best option as a starting point. On the french side of the mountains, in the middle of the Pyrenees. A day-walk away from Roncesvalles. But what a day. You have to climb 1.200 meter on that first day. We did not fancy that idea. Not on a first day. And also our Portuguese bicycle-rental guy did not want to drive to France to deliver our 3 bikes. Lucky us. And that’s why we start in Roncesvalles, 20 kilometer closer to Santiago. The first village past the border in Spain.

We will follow the traditional so-called ‘french route’ (we will be cycling all the time in Spain though). Some 850 kilometers till Santiago, covered in 13-14 days of hard work. We do not have fixed stops; we will go through a few bigger cities on the road (Pamplona, on the first day, later on Burgos and Leon) but I suppose we will be happy to continue without long stop there.

Our charity action for Village St Jean has raised 1.847 Euro until now. There still is space for more. Just send us a mail with the amount you would like to sponsor (http://www.unitate.ro/ gives you more info on the charity we support). Thanks to those of you who did so already. A quick example: you sponsor 0.2 euro for each 10 km we cycle; at the end we come with proof (and we do estimate now it is going to be 850 km); in this example you would sponsor a total of 17 euro. Of course we accept all donations, smaller and bigger. The ones amongst you who did not have high marks in maths can always go for a fixed amount for the whole trip, don’t feel obliged to go for a value per 10 km. One of you indicated in his support mail that he would only accept kilometers that were really cycled. Putting our bikes on the back of a truck would not count. Andre, as if we would be up to such a thing. Our Spanish really is not good enough.

Talk to you soon.

Your pilgrims.

Jan, Richard, Sam