Green Roads

We started off our day driving back out the Nive Valley and then exploring St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, which is on the Nive River and only 8km from Spain. St-Jean's name means "Saint John at the foot of the mountain pass." It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We knew we would visit this town if we ever were in the vicinity. It is a famous launching point for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, some 730km away. Three pilgrimage routes from different parts of France converge in St-Jean.

Years ago now (1997 I think), we were on a trip in France, visiting the Massif Central, the Auvergne and Aveyron regions, and veering toward the area known as the Lot. One of our "guides" for the trip was a pair of articles we had read about following one of the pilgrimage routes toward Santiago de Compostela. Now, as then, our choice for the pilgrimage is to drive it, not walk it. But we loved that trip and have often said it was our time in France that impacted us the most. It wasn't a tourist route at all and was part of what is called "La France Profonde," the more profoundly French area of France. Also, coming out of that experience, we knew someday we wanted to visit St-Jean.

It is a very heavily touristed town. Knowing that, we made a point of arriving fairly early, before the heat was too much and when parking would still be easy to get (i.e., before too many tourist buses made their way to town). We wandered the streets, seeing signs for rooms or other services for pilgrims. We saw only a few pilgrims, but they are easy to spot, with scallop shells on their packs or on cords around their necks.








Note the scallop shells on the packs of these two pilgrims.




Not having a plan of where we were headed after St-Jean, but wanting to keep seeing pretty views like we had the previous days, we set off using a network of green roads. Michelin maps are quite good at marking scenic routes in green. They're usually a pretty good indicator of attractive ways to get from one place to another.

We were headed generally east and to the north. We went over the Col d'Osquich (col = pass), which was indeed scenic.




We stopped in Mauleon for lunch and found ourselves in a town with completely different history and architecture.




We continued on another green road and found ourselves in a lush and rather quiet area. Pretty as it was, I kept noticing that the really high mountains were further east and to the south of our trajectory. While we had thought it might be nice to stop for 2 nights and make day trips, I had a very strong pull to get closer to those higher peaks I could see in the distance.




So we found a nice place to hang our hats for the night and enjoyed pretty vistas from the garden, while visions of more mountains danced in my head.

The view from our garden.



A painting of our hotel for the night.




Where will the green roads take us tomorrow? Will we find a way into the mountains on the horizon?


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