Travels so far..

Good flight down to Stansted with EasyJet. Stayed at an airport hotel and was pleasantly surprised at how friendly and efficient the bar / restaurant staff were. Got to bed later than intended!

Wednesday:
Up in the middle of the night for an early flight to Biarritz. Ryanair asked for masks to be worn – I guess because masks are still required on French transport. We had planned spending some time in Biarritz but jumped on the bus with a bunch of fellow walkers and ended up at the train station in Bayonne, miles away from Biarritz. As it turned out Bayonne is a beautiful old town to explore and we also visited a Basque museum which was very interesting. In the afternoon we took the train to Saint Jean Pied de Port arriving around 4pm. Slight problem in that the tickets I had asked Susan to buy online just before departure were for the following day! Apparently that was my fault 😏- not that it mattered as the conductor, obviously recognising us as innocents abroad, accepted them.
Few drinks, dinner at ‘Chez Eduard’, and a very welcome early night.
Today we met:
John, a retired chap from Selkirk
Les (aged 77) a widower from Cornwall
Bill from Vancouver Island
Mum and son from Salisbury
A very smiley older chap from Belgium
Mum and daughter from Ohio, daughter teaches English in Japan
Mum and dad from Hampshire seeing off their daughter. Dad (an orchestra conductor who has performed regularly in Eden Court) hung back to inform us that their daughter had recently been diagnosed with MS and could we keep an eye on her if our paths crossed. I like to think he was reassured when we obviously said we would, as would everyone else.
Dave, a retired teacher of Greek and Latin!, from Seattle
And a couple of Italian chaps that Susan got chatting to while I was thinking of what to say to Dave😀