5/6 walking days from St Jean Pied de Port

[Annaree]

Am flying from Dublin to Biarritz at the start of June and have only 5 or 6 days for walking. Hope to cover 20 km a day. Amn't too sure where the best place to start from is but thinking of starting from St Jean. Where should I finish and is there any alternative to just doubling back (by bus presumably?) to St. Jean. Are all towns connected by bus and easy to travel back from? Thanks for any help.

[Covey]

Getting back to SJPdP is a bit of a bind, but you could fly into Santiago from Dublin and walk the Sarria to Santiago leg, for which you can get a Compostela from the Cathedral and then fly home to Dublin.

Having enjoyed yourself this year, you will then want to return next year to walk from SJPdP to Santiago.

[cairde]

Hola Annaree,
If you are walking for 5/6 days you could consider walking from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Estella. That section of the route is very variable...very green in places similar to Ireland.....along beautiful mountain passes, riverside walks, through forests and farmland, and also experience incredible architecture in some of the smaller towns, especially window/door types. The weather however can be very variable....you could expect to get all 4 seasons in the one day......generally you can expect the temperature to be in the range 20 to 25 Celsius, even when raining.
I would recommend Estella as a good stopping off point with good direct bus connections to Biarritz, Santander and Bilbao (all towns are well served with direct flights to/from Dublin). Also if you return to the Camino at a later stage, Estella is easily connected by bus - ALSA is the main bus company and you don't have to prebook.....just turn up....many connections with other main towns and cities every day including Sundays. If you are stopping off in some of the smaller towns, you will generally find that they are connected to the larger towns by smaller capacity buses....but less frequent.
Hope this helps,
Buen Camino