Pilgrim's Road

the main square opening its doors to the congregation who were beginning to file out of the church across the way. Studying the map over my coffee, I realised that I must be very close to a house where I was expected to call. The friendly Rigauds, who had entertained me in Cluis, had telephoned friends of theirs who had recently moved to a village on my route. It was on the spit of land in Aquitaine that lies between the two broad arms of the Gave, the northernmost of which, graced with a fortified medieval bridge, flowed darkly before me as I drank my coffee.
    An hour later I was eating luncheon in a smart modernised farmhouse, the guest of André and Claire Legrain, an exairline pilot and his wife. Neither came from this part of France, but had chosen it for their retirement purely because it was close enough to the Pyrenees for them to go skiing with ease. They knew nothing of the Santiago pilgrimage or of the Chemin de Compostelle that passed so close to their door, though now they heard about it from me they realised the significance of names like l’Hôpitald’Orion, attached to a tiny village from which the great medieval buildings had long since vanished.
     

     
    I spent a pleasant day with André and Claire, for they had the same warm gift of hospitality I had enjoyed with the Rigauds and made me feel very welcome. But I was surprised at just how novel it felt to be installed in a comfortable house after only two weeks of my spartan little tent. Sofas and armchairs seemed positively sybaritic, and as for the soft double bed I was to sleep in, compared with the narrow, inch-thick little mat I spent my nights on, it seemed ridiculous to suppose that the two things had anything in common. At this halfway point in the journey I was tired enough to appreciate a rest, but I cannot pretend that it was much of a mental relaxation. Claire spoke no English and André knew only as much as was required of an international pilot, so my erratic French was stretched to its utmost. Another couple came to dinner too, and as the conversation grew more animated it became only too easy to lose the thread altogether. I tried to make up for my lack of verbal contribution by looking attentive and intelligent, and fortunately this seemed to work, for every so often someone would say kindly ‘Oh Bettina understands everything, it is only talking she finds difficult’ — a misconception I did nothing to correct. I went to bed eventually, beautifully wined and dined but as exhausted as if I had just sat a gruelling examination paper.
    The Legrains had kindly invited me to stay on for a day or two, but much as I liked them and would have enjoyed exploring this pretty part of Aquitaine in their company, now was not the time. After even so short a break I found myself eager to get back to the Chemin de Compostelle , to the more rigorous conditions, the close contact with nature, the periods of silence and the challenge of the road itself with its surprises and revelations. The pilgrimage, I was discovering imposed its own disciplines, together with its rewards, and turning aside to make visits did not really fit in with its demands.
    I made an early start, and once again toiled up and down steep-sided countryside in a gentle warm downpour, and once I was thoroughly wet I quite enjoyed it, for the pretty cows with their long-fringed lashes, which I now knew to be a breed called Blanche d’Aquitaine , still poked their heads quizzically over the walls and fences as I passed.
    Seeing the rare phenomenon of an open church at Sauveterre de Bearn, just before the crossing of the southern arm of the Gave, I seized the opportunity to get out of the rain for a while and have my record stamped. The priest, a born comic, said ‘Beaucoup de descentes maintentant madame,' adding after a short pause, ‘ et montsaussi, naturellement .’ He was quite right, the gradients increased as the symbol for a good view became more plentifully peppered over the map.
    By mid-afternoon, when I was long past enjoying the rain, I arrived at Saint Palais, which from its name had led me to expect at least some vestiges of splendour and comfort. Alas for my expectations, I found it a down-at-heel place, made infinitely more so by the puddles, the soaked walls and the absence of lunch, the hour for which was long past. On the corner of the Avenue Gibraltar (nothing to do with the Rock, but a Basque corruption of the name St Saveur) I came upon the shabby