{"id":86816,"date":"2016-02-15T15:55:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T23:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/getting-to-the-camino-2\/"},"modified":"2016-03-27T22:43:28","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T05:43:28","slug":"getting-to-the-camino-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/getting-to-the-camino-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting to the Camino"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>e hope to begin our 2016 Camino in the quaint French mountain village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a name that more or less means “Saint John at the Foot of the Pass”.<\/p>\n

Getting to Saint-Jean is always a bit of an adventure, particularly if you are, like us, flying into Madrid rather than Paris.<\/p>\n

You may remember that we purchased bus tickets<\/a> from Madrid to Pamplona. Well, the bus gets us into town a wee bit too late to successfully make the next bit of the trek. So today, we changed our bus tickets out for train tickets.<\/p>\n

This, my friends, was a surreal experience.<\/p>\n

Renfe, the national train service in Spain, maintains a web site that others have described as “a bit Alice in Wonderland”. That really doesn’t do it justice. It took us nearly an hour just to book two train tickets.<\/p>\n

The first point to note is that, according to Renfe itself, the web site only works using Internet Explorer, and it’s optimized for Windows XP. So that should be your first warning sign.<\/p>\n

\"renfe\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They claim you can use the site in English, and indeed, the first page is in perfect English. On the next page, however, the text quickly become Spanglish. And then, the translator apparently just threw up his arms and gave up, because even though the header on the pages continue to claim “English”, the entire rest of the site is in Spanish.<\/p>\n

You really might as well just not bother and go with the main Spanish site instead.<\/p>\n

The ticket purchase page allows you to choose seat options that don’t exist. They will never actually tell you that they don’t exist – that would apparently be impolite. The transaction simply errors out at the very end. <\/p>\n

So there’s a bit of trial and error there.<\/p>\n

\"Pensi\u00f3n<\/a><\/p>\n

Pensi\u00f3n Coraz\u00f3n Puro<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If you attempt to pay with a non-European credit card, the site will cheerfully accept it… until final checkout, where it will blank out most of the page and throw up an error saying (four times in a row) “El documento de la tarifa es necesario”.<\/p>\n

For the record, Google confirms that nowhere else on the entire web site mentions this at all.<\/p>\n

If you purchase using PayPal, however, it works just fine. Apparently they take care of that pesky documento de la tarifa<\/em> for you.<\/p>\n

So now that we (finally) have train tickets electronically in hand, we are good as far as Pamplona.<\/p>\n

From Pamplona, we will be picked up by Istvan, the proprietor of Pensi\u00f3n Coraz\u00f3n Puro<\/a>. We’ll have some supper and spend the night of March 28th there.<\/p>\n

\"Beilari\"<\/a>In the morning, Istvan will drive us to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. We plan on spending the day of March 29th there, with dinner and a bed already reserved at Beilari<\/a>, a place of uncommon renown on the Camino.<\/p>\n

Then, shortly after dawn on the 30th, we begin walking.<\/p>\n

Huzzah!<\/p>\n

(Originally posted to Pilgrims on the Way<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We hope to begin our 2016 Camino in the quaint French mountain village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a name that more or less means “Saint John at the Foot of the Pass”. Getting to Saint-Jean is always a bit of an adventure, particularly if you are, like us, flying into Madrid rather than Paris. You may remember that we purchased bus tickets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camino"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aGBK-mAg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41454,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/achievement-unlocked-purchase-ticket-in-spanglish\/","url_meta":{"origin":86816,"position":0},"title":"Achievement Unlocked: Purchase Ticket in Spanglish","author":"Thom","date":"29 January 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Sixty days from today, I fly to Spain. Sixty days in advance is the earliest you can purchase a train ticket in Spain using Renfe\u2018s web site. Since I need to get from Madrid to Pamplona (and thence to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port), I figured I would buy a train ticket today. Here\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bus route Madrid to Pamplona","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Bus-route-small.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":85473,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/getting-to-the-camino\/","url_meta":{"origin":86816,"position":1},"title":"Getting to the Camino","author":"Thom","date":"30 June 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Road to Roncesvalles The time has come where I\u2019m checking flight prices every Tuesday. Today, for the first time, I found a round-trip ticket to Madrid for our dates for less than a thousand dollars. My goal is $800 or less. That should happen sometime near the middle or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Road to Roncesvalles","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/8613789582_d9e7bfa368_z-300x224.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":90009,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/galicia-in-the-autumn\/","url_meta":{"origin":86816,"position":2},"title":"Galicia in the Autumn","author":"Thom","date":"17 August 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"After walking the Camino Franc\u00e9s in 2013 from Roncesvalles and in 2016 from St Jean, Francine and I were busy planning our next Spanish adventure for 2020. The plan was that I would walk the Franc\u00e9s from St Jean (or possibly Lourdes), while she took a flat in Burgos to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/guidebooks2018.jpg?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/guidebooks2018.jpg?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/guidebooks2018.jpg?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/guidebooks2018.jpg?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/guidebooks2018.jpg?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":37909,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/packs-and-flights-and-hats\/","url_meta":{"origin":86816,"position":3},"title":"Packs and Flights and Hats","author":"Thom","date":"15 January 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Camino planning has taken a turn for the serious this week. Francine got her backpack (a Gregory Freia 30) and ordered her trekking poles, towel, and some other equipment. Oh, and today I booked my flight to Madrid. I\u2019ll be flying out on Easter morning (31 March) and arriving in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"freia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/freia.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":85141,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/2016-route-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":86816,"position":4},"title":"2016 Route Update","author":"Thom","date":"23 April 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"After much back and forth, we decided to cut out as many of the extras as we can and just focus on the Camino. The current version of the plan (such as it is) looks like this: Fly out of Seattle on Easter Sunday and into Madrid. From there, we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Pilgrim's Progress","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/pilgrim27s_progress_lg1-297x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7197,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/james\/","url_meta":{"origin":86816,"position":5},"title":"James","author":"Thom","date":"25 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Santiago, Saint James the Greater, was one of Christ's Twelve Apostles. His feast is celebrated today. He and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the fisherman Zebedee and his wife Salome, whom the Eastern Christians name Myrrh-bearer. They were disciples of John the Baptist, but the Baptist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/CaminoMapOSB-1024x571.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/CaminoMapOSB-1024x571.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/CaminoMapOSB-1024x571.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86817,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86816\/revisions\/86817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}