Tuesday's Tour de France's Stage 16 was from Bagneres de Luchon to Pau (124 miles) in southwestern France. When we hiked through Pau on the route known as the Camino Aragones (or GR653), it was the midpoint of a relatively short hiking day — just short of twelve miles. Nevertheless our pace, which took us along the plains and valleys of this region as opposed to the four major passes of the Pyrenees that the bicyclists took on in Stage 16, allowed us to take in lingering impressions of the region.

Coincidentally, this was Day 16 of our 188-mile hike from Dourgne to Oloron-Ste-Marie, France on one of the pilgrimage routes of the Camino de Santiago -- the GR653. Our Day 16 took us from Morlaàs to Lescar and most of the time we were again road walking -- with only a little time in the woods and fields. Yet we were delighted about spotting a couple of beavers, a hawk, and a deer that was so tiny that it was able to dart into a cornfield and squeeze between the closely spaced rows.

The GR653 goes along the outskirts of Pau (pronounced "Poe") through suburbs springing up everywhere. We found the newer homes rather boring and lacking the character of the old farmhouses we had been passing, but many of the homes had swimming pools, which considering the climate are probably usable a good percentage of the year. Unlike the conditions in the higher points of the Pyrenees, the weather in Poe is rather mild year round and even though we had started the day with fog, it soon burned off and made for comfortable hiking.

The trail travels along the fencing of Pau's Hippodrome, which is a huge racetrack and major sports complex. This is the region of the Béarnais -- who have long been fans of horseracing and involved in the breeding of racehorses since the early 1800s.

We ended our hiking day in Lescar, a small town of approximately 10,000, which is on the site of a former Roman city known as Benearnum (or Beneharnum or Civitas Benarnensium). This city was the first capital, and the origin, of the province of Bearn. Morlaàs, that day's starting point, was the second capital of Bearn.

It was at dinner a couple of nights earlier that I had been corrected when I commented to our host that I enjoyed being in Basque country again and was politely, but pointedly, told that the Béarnais and the Basque are two different peoples and the regions in which they have settled, although in close proximately to each other, are distinct. 

From this region came a sauce composed clarified butter, egg yolks, and herbs known as Béarnaise sauce -- commonly used on steaks. After our brief visit to the beautiful Romanesque Cathedral in Lescar, we returned to our hotel. The Basque country and higher regions of the Pyrenees were still ahead.

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There are multiple routes to get to the Pau region from the San Francisco Bay Area. Flights can take you to Paris, Toulouse, and Bordeaux and then you can continue on by train, bus, or domestic flight to the vicinity.