Background:
Although the Tour de France is over for this year, the pilgrims who walk along some of the Tour's route -- or at least in the vicinity -- will continue their journeys on the Camino Aragones as hundreds of thousands have over the last thousand years.
The trail known as the Camino de Santiago or Saint James Way travels almost 500 miles across Northern Spain from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela. However, this popular route is actually only one of the pilgrimage routes throughout Europe. (You might compare it to a large river such as the Mississippi that is fed by a number of tributaries.) As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, the Camino Aragones begins in Arles, France and joins the Camino de Santiago just before Puente la Reina, Spain -- more than 500 miles.
After the Camino Aragones passes through Pau (see part 2), the hike continues SW and starts to climb -- gently at first -- into the Pyrenees. This June, we hiked 188-miles of this route -- from Oloron St. Marie, France to Logroño, Spain.
Hike:
After we left Oloron St. Marie on our first hiking day, we began a moderate climb on a dirt path. Then as might be expected in the foothills, the trail continued up and down -- often on right-of-ways between farms and shaded by mixed forest. We were delighted to hear the elusive cuckoos. Whenever we went back on tarmac, my feet complained.
We came to a large, flat area with signs posted indicating that we had reached a resort and spa where guests could come to soak in the region's hot springs. The two-story buildings looked promising for lunch, but when we knocked on the only open, but screened door, we were told that no food was available. It was sad to see the deserted grounds of what must have been a genteel setting in earlier times.
We walked on to the nearby town of Lurbe Saint Christau and inquired at the only restaurant about lunch. Though we seemed to be the only paying guests, we were told that we'd have to wait until 12 noon -- 11:30 was too early for lunch. Since our guidebook mentioned other places to eat further along our route, we continued.
Nothing appeared. Then I saw a white van pull up in front of a house and the driver jump out parcel in hand and run up to the front door of the house. As the driver and the housewife launched into a conversation, I looked through the windows of the van. Sitting on the passenger seat was a loaf of French bread. We managed — in our passable French — to indicate that we would like to buy the remaining loaf. Now, with the salami and cheese that we had purchased before we left Oloron, we had the makings of our picnic lunch.)
We were surprised that we weren't seeing any other hikers — after all this was June, the weather was perfect (70s) and it's a holy year for the Catholic Church and crowds of people have been expected to make a pilgrimage.
What we did see was bicyclists! Little did we know that at day's end when we came to Escot, we would be at the start of one of the Tour's most famous climbs — Col de Marie Blanque. Col [pass] de Marie-Blanc is 2,339 vertical feet over 5.7 miles — with the last 2.4 miles a 10% grade and this year it was part of Stage 17's very difficult day.
At 3 PM (11.2 miles), we reached our destination for the day, Les Fontaines d'Escot, a chateau within the Pyrenees National Park. The accommodations are undergoing restoration — room by room — by its new English owners. They seemed overwhelmed by the immense project they had undertaken, but dinner showed no lack of culinary skills. Dinner was outstanding — a salad of lettuces, tomato, white asparagus, and herring followed by beef bourguignon and rice, and a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake topped with vanilla ice cream and warm chocolate.
In two days we'd reach the Col de Somport (Somport Pass) — the border between France and Spain.
Travel:
There are numerous ways to reach France from SFO. We flew to Paris, then Pau, and took the bus to St. Marie de Oloron.
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