The Sun Also Rises in Burguete

On my second trip across the Pyrenees, I took the Valcarlos Route and had reservations for the night at the Hostel Burguete. Since crossing the Pyrenees a few years earlier, I knew that I had wanted to try the less popular route across the mountains and also spend the night in Burguete just three kilometers further on from Roncesvalles.

The Sun Also Rises is one of my favorite Hemingway reads. Prior to this Camino, I made sure to reread the chapters that described his time fly fishing in Navarra and later his adventures in Pamplona. Based on his description in the book, it doesn’t seem that the Hostel Burguete had changed much over the last hundred years. The upright dinning-room piano that Hem scratched his name on in 1923 still occupied its place of prominence. There were only a few diners there the evening we stayed. To my great pleasure, I was able to order “Truite à la Hemingway” which did not disappoint. After dinner we retired to the Hemingway Room which I had requested when making our reservations there. In hindsight, I can say the we paid no more to stay at this inn than we paid elsewhere in private accommodations along The Way. Anyone who walks the Camino is likely to have some preconceived ideas regarding their trip and experiences. Our stay at the Hostel Burguete lived up to my expectations and was a particularly pleasant indulgence after a very long day hiking across the Pyrenees from Saint-Jean-Pied- De- Port.