Auritz-Burguete

Written by Clara the Exploradora

Getting to this town took quite a bit of time. Patrick and I had to go from Sitges to Barcelona to Zaragoza (our mid point. We stayed the night there before going the rest of the way), Zaragoza to Pamplona and in Pamplona we took a bus from the train station to the bus station and caught a bus to Auritz. The bus to Auritz leaves twice a day at around 9 AM and 4 PM and the tickets were $4.55 each.

This town had a very “Beauty and the Beast” look about it. I instantly felt at home and in love!

We got off the bus in front of the town chapel and walked to our hostal which was called Hostal Burguete (http://www.hotelburguete.com/). Since this town is on the Camino de Santiago, there are lots of travelers hostales, and also, much of it is closed down in the off season. It took us a little while to find a hostal that was open and it was fairly priced.

Ernest Hemingway happened to have a history in this town, something I did not know until we got there; Patrick knew though because he is a nerd. Not only did Mr. Hemingway love this town, he frequented this Hostal! It made me feel instantly more intelligent just being there. It also inspired us to sit in the very antiquey sitting room. Which we did whilst playing Monopoly Deal. I’m sure a famous writer like Hemingway would have appreciated that game if had the chance to play it at some point in his life.

We took a walk around town that evening but, as it is in the mountains and was rainy, dark, and cold, we did not walk too much. However, we did learn that this town has a strong history of burning witches, who were later found innocent.

This hostal advertises that dinner and breakfast are included. Breakfast was just a pile of bread with orange juice, butter, and some jams. Nothing too filling or special. Dinner, however, is a wonderful menu of many things. Eat the soup. It’s simple yet wonderfully delicious. It’s a three course meal, with free water, bread AND a bottle of wine for like 12 Euros or something. Patrick and I took full advantage of this all inclusive dinner in the quaint little dining room, but alas, it wasn’t actually included in the price of the hostal. They just tacked dinner and breakfast on to our final check out bill. Smooth trick Iñaki. Real smooth…. totally had us fooled. It was worth it though. The beds were soft, the rooms clean, and we had an endless stream of hot water for a shower.

Our day outing, which was going to be to the top of a mountain, down to the town of Roncevalles, and a big loop of the Camino turned into us walking through a consistent rain storm, getting lost on the woods due to poorly marked trails, hopping a few fences, somehow finding the Camino, making it to Roncevalles, finding the one open cafe for a bite to eat and a hot drink (we were soaked through and freezing by then), leaving to walk a tiny section of the Camino, and then making it back to the hostal to officially dry off and warm up. As treacherous and terrible as that sounds, it was amazing. The forest was beautiful in it’s changing, yet vivid colors, the hills were shrouded in mist but not to the point where you couldn’t see them, and, like I said earlier, everything looks like it came out of the movie Beauty and the Beast.

Remember that soup I was talking about? It was just what we needed after such a cold and rainy day, and soup we got. As well as lessons on how to speak Basque. That, my friends is a weird and complicated language. Try saying a few words while you are there, like ordering food by calling it its Basque name. Stuff like that. It makes it a much more cultural experience, and Inaki, the hostal host seemed to love teaching us his words.

We had to leave early the next morning to get to our next destination, Zarautz. The unofficial/unmarked bus station was across the street from where we were dropped off. A short ride later, we were back in Pamplona sitting in the bus station waiting for our bus to San Sebastian, where we would catch the UK 10 straight to Zarautz.