When in France ...

I feel like I'm on strike. I had a comical performance trying to move forward today. The plan was to make it to the outskirts of Pau which is only 8km away.

I thought it was supposed to be old and interesting, but didn't find it to be. I was going to start in the municipal place for €10 but I got to the town hall just after it closed for two hours. I walked most of the way to a hotel two km away but it was on a highway between a tractor dealer and gravel yard. It was only 12:30 so I figured I'd cut my losses and found a bus back to Pau.

I'm still undecided about where to go next. I might just stay in Pau one more day to decide. This route is so un-user-friendly.

Pau

Very nice city. But the worst sushi imaginable. They tried to make me dunk it in their special syrupy sweet sauce instead of good old salty soy sauce.

I found a place that served whiskey.  I had three of them in an effort to disinfect my body from that sushi.

It seems that the 2015 French chess championships are being held in Pau starting on the 26th.

I don't know what's with the "Brooklyn" building here in Pau. I think they're trying to be edgy.

Damn. I'm here!

All of a sudden I'm in the thick of the Pyranees -Atlantic region. I feel like I have a lot of options to consider before moving on to Spain.

The traditional route skirts around a city called Pau. I'm only about 15 km from the city now and am leaning toward taking a day or two there to consider my options.

One option that I'm just starting to consider is continuing on this route (soon to be officially the Camino Aragonnes ) to Puente la Reina, but instead of doing the traditional route to Santiago, walk back to Pamplona, take a train to Irun or San Sebastian and walking the northern route. I'd need to make damned sure I'm not the only one on that route though.

Part of me is tempted to cut over to St. Jean Pied de Port and do the Roncesvalles pass through the mountains instead of the Somport pass. Yesterday a guy in Maubourguet said that this route is empty now because the there's still too much snow on Somport. Not sure I buy that but it does make me think I've got some thinking to do in Pau.

Too Pooped To Post

Not for any specific reason. Today wasn't a particularly challenging day at all. Except that I did get lost in the morning and once I got to this town (Maubourguet) I realized that the whole freaking place is closed on Sundays. A pizza place was open so I grabbed one and brought it to my room. Even the manager of the "hotel" I'm at went home at 6PM so I called her and told her I couldn't eat my pizza without wine so she sent her husband back over with a half bottle of red.

I've been watching my over-achieving Mets on "gamecast" for the past couple of hours. They're about to blow a six run lead. But at least I have wifi.

I can tell I'm getting pretty close to the mountains because there are more rivers and streams, and they're flowing more rapidly.

I'm fed up with Google. For too many reasons to go into right now but one example is that the Google blogging app that I use will not allow me to post a short video - taken from my Android (Google) phone. The Mac version of Blogger WILL let me post a video from my laptop but it won't import videos from my phone.

Anyway, first world problems. I have a great audio recording of a frog pond on my phone as well but Google won't let me post it from their own frickin operating system to their own frickin blogging system. Thanks for letting me vent.

Here's a picture of a cow and another one of a very narrow bridge.

People

They were just hiking for the day and standing in the middle of the path as I walked up. I think they noticed that it looked funny when half of them stepped to one side of the path and the other half to the opposite side. We all had a good laugh though.

The Best Place

Cafe - Bar - Hotel - Restaurant Auberge is a humble looking place. It's also the only place to stay in Montesquiou unless you want to stay on a goose farm where they brag about showing you how they make fois gras.  Montesquiou is where I stayed last night, without wifi.

The room was clean, quiet and comfortable. But the food was ridiculously good. It was one of those places that you eat whatever they put in front of you. First a huge pot of pumpkin soup that I had two bowls of. Then a plate of perfectly ripe canteloupe slices, prosciutto style ham, delicious home-made quiche and a green salad with balsamic vinegar & oil. The main course was a pan fried flaky white fish that I think was fluke or flounder, with potatoes sauteed in red wine & oil (I think).  A nice sized pitcher of red wine was already on the table.  Desert was rum raisin ice cream served in a glass coated with Armanac  (I think).  The family that run the place are all super friendly and welcoming. Breakfast the next morning was the usual.  The bill for the whole shabang (room, dinner, breakfast)?  €39.

Headed South

It feels completely different going south.  this Time of year the sun has been behind me and to the left until late afternoon. I felt nice to be walking toward the sun this afternoon.

I'm in serious farm country now. Not really big agro. Mostly smaller farms. I'm not sure what they're growing but will take some pictures tomorrow to see if anyone can identify what it is. It seems like mostly all the same crop. Looks like corn shoots but they're already knee high and it's nowhere near the 4th of July. My early guess is sunflowers.

It's hard to believe any Jing can grow in that kind of "soil".  It must be mostly clay because the clumps are so hard I can barely break them with my walking stick. Walking in farmland like this is kind of a drag because of the clay. It ranges from ankle deep mud that you can barely pull your foot out of, to rock hard tractor tracks they wreak havoc on the ankles. There are like 50 states of clay, none of them good to walk on!

I actually took a decent picture of the  tractor tracks I'm dealing with but where I'm staying has no wifi and barely a cellular data connection.

Tomorrow is a nice 23km jaunt to a town called Marciac. I should have good wifi there.