After a big day yesterday, it was surprising that both of us were awake before the alarm went off at 0500. Despite the fireworks at some point during the night that woke me up, a Sunday sleep in was not on the cards! So we had an early morning departure from Pamplona, leaving our accommodation by 0805, and heading through the almost deserted streets of the suburbs and commercial areas before hitting the countryside about 7 or 8 km from our start. On Saturday we had consulted a woman at the Tourist Office about the routes to San Sebastian. She was quite doubtful that we could do the trip in less than two days, and suggested a route back through France(!!).... As for the roads, well there would be way too much traffic! She did point out the Greenway that seemed to point directly to San Sebastian, but couldn't see how we could get to the start of it, seeing as it was about 30 km to the northwest of Pamplona. Well, this part of the day was the best - hardly any traffic on the roads, lots of sportifs zooming past us or towards us. Pamplona sits on a vast plateau, surrounded by mountains, and we started to climb up to them, leaving behind the wheat and sunflower fields. We were following a river, and went through a narrow pass shared with the river and a train line. Eventually our road paralleled the superhighway A-15, twisting above and below it, as our road (the original main road) followed contours (mostly) while the new highway ran straight and true, with viaducts and long tunnels (and of course no bicycles allowed!). So it was with some excitement that we came to the start of the ‘Voie Verte du Plazaola’ at the renovated station of Lekunberri, a town situated 34 kilometres north of Pamplona. The Plazaola Green Route has reclaimed some of the railway line used by the first train to connect Pamplona with San Sebastian, which ran between 1914 and 1953. From the station, there was the promise of a 42-kilometre trip from Lekunberri to Andoain on a gently ascending or descending path away from the traffic through lovely scenery, with numerous tunnels to avoid the steep climbs and descents. Well, what a disappointment it turned out to be. Yes, the scenery was lovely, the gradient was mostly gentle. But the surface was unsealed (which we expected) but it was loose gravel, parts of it washed away and with the original railway ballast providing a very rough surface. The tunnels were a mixed bag - there was supposed to be about 60 tunnels on this section of the original line, I lost count - it seemed like dozens - which were anything from a few metres to 2.7 km in length. In most there was no lighting, though the very longest tunnels did have lights (or at least in several cases had lights that were vandalized). Some of the tunnels had lots of water running from the ceiling and down the walls and across the unsealed floor (some tunnels did have concrete bases, not all). At times, it felt like we rode through waterfalls and lakes! Mud had built up in sections of the floor, and the previous riders had created ‘train tracks’ in it that gripped and twisted our bikes away from our intended path. The change from sunlight to black meant that our eyes took time to adjust to our lighting, and gave us some heart stopping moments. Confidence was not helped by seeing a bike rider going towards us come a cropper when his eBike slipped out from under him on approaching a tunnel. There was lovely scenery - pity that most of the time it took all concentration to just stay upright on the bikes! On average we were doing about 10 kmh on this section of the day’s ride, which made for a very long day, about 10 hours on the road. So we were quite glad to reach San Sebastian! And our first sighting of the Atlantic Ocean! And the completion of our East to West crossing of the Pyrenees! Very much on the tourist track, and very popular with locals too, one can only wonder what it is going to be like when the tourist season really kicks off in July/August! Our accommodation is right in the heart of the old town, and from previous emails with the owner, we knew that we were going to have to keep one bike in the room, and one in the ‘communal space’ which is the grand name for the corridor. After our riding through the tunnels, our bikes were covered in mud and dust, so it was fortuitous that we came across a service station not far from the end of the green way with a washing bay - 2 euros gave us 6 minutes of high pressure hose action that cleaned off the mud from our bikes and panniers, as well as Penny (sorry about that - these things have a hair trigger!) It also provided some much needed light relief before the final 16 or so kilometres into San Sebastian, which turned out not to be just downhill. Our route seemed to take us up as many hills as it could fit it.. A quick walk around town enjoying a delicious sorbet after an excellent pizza and well earned beer for me, and water with bubbles for Penny, and then to sleep!