- Pèlerins en route vers les cols de Cize - Roncevaux
In St Jean Pied of Port, the pilgrims enter the fortified town by the Door St Jacques, and go to the point of welcome of the pilgrims (N° 39, street of Citadel ). It is there that they make accredit the crédential (log book of the pilgrim).
The pilgrims take the road, they go down the street of the Citadel, agree a stopping place in the church Notre-Dame of the End of the Bridge, then raise the street of Spain and dash to the collars of Cize via the door of Spain.
There wait for them one of the most difficult stages of the Road of Santiago de Compostela: 28 km, 1300 meters of made uneven, 8 hours of walking... But one of the most beautiful.
Besides the crossing of Pyrenees, the pilgrims walk on the steps of the troops of Charlemagne and Roland's memory, the Napoleonic wars, the passage of Romain (Tower of Urkulu), the ways of transhumance were borrowed from the Protohistory until our days.
Today a legend, that of Jacques le Majeur's grave to Compostelle, makes live in this crossing of Pyrenees the episodes which join a very contemporary history appropriate to support an economic and cultural transpyrenees irrigation.
You can download the profiles of the stages
- By the way of Valcarloss in case of bad weather