Sunrise leaving St. Jean, God’s Masterpiece!

We left St Jean early in the morning along with 100’s of other pilgrims. This was going to be a ‘short’ day for us. Thank goodness, because we had no idea how strenuous the trip up would be. The climb was equivalent to walking up 197 flights of stairs over the 6.56 mile trek.

The scenery was breathtaking! What a welcome sign, when we finally turned the corner where we saw the Refuge Orisson. We were pleasantly surprised when we were taken to our room- we had a private twin room! No bunk beds, and just the two of us. We showered, washed our clothes and visited with other pilgrims. We found out this albergue had no wifi. In retrospect, we acknowledge that was good. Rather than being ‘connected’, we were ‘forced’ to mingle. We enjoyed our first real pilgrim dinner experience by continuing to get to know our pilgrim friends during dinner.