Buen Camino

Dix-septième jour - Friday 3rd July, Arzacq-Arraziguet - Pomps - 21.4 klms (running total approx 315.3)

I think I'll start today with a PPR (a Podiatric Progress Report 🤔) for the record. With 6 days and around 100 klms to go there is a possibility that the feet will actually get me to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. How's that for confidence???

Now let me start properly. Staying in a 15th C "hotel" as we did last night was a high point, trumped as it were by the meals which our hostess Roxanne prepared. I recorded some photos in yesterday's post, but without a bit of history. Roxanne and hubby were married for 32 years; he died 4 years ago. He was a chef, and as she tells it, probably the best in town. For their wedding they were given an extensive 50-setting Villaroy & Boch crockery set, which they used for the hotel restaurant. The restaurant no longer operates as a public offering, but she uses the crockery for all meals prepared for guests.

This morning for breakfast she had laid out the most fabulous spread; certainly in terms of style the best we've experienced. I'll leave a couple of photos to tell that story.

Some of the dinner set

The walk today just was. Lots of ups and downs followed but some final stretches of relative flat. Three towns along the way, but none with services.

But there was a sort of gite at a place called Fichous-Riumayou about halfway along which served coffee and cakes, so that was a logical stop. It turns out that the owner is Argentinian, and he wrote Buen Camino in our credencials, and that led to a brief chat en espańol. Which in turn led me to thinking about my not very good Spanish and my appalling French, and my level of comfort with my inability to converse to any meaningful degree with the locals. Years ago that inability would have played with my self-esteem; these days I'm way more comfortable just being me.

Anyway, some shots from the walk:

A political comment, from a local or a fellow pèlerin?? I think that perhaps there are bigger buffoons on the world stage, but who am I to say?

Here in the town of Pomps the locals are protesting, reasonably I think, against a petrochemical plant which is planned for the centre of this tiny village

And now to the special side trip for the day. I'd heard about the Chateau Morlanne, and hoped to be able to get there. Our hostess Kathy kindly drove us there, and we got to look around the village and the castle. The castle was built in 1373 and over the years fell into serious disrepair. In 1947 Mr and Mrs Raymond Ritter purchased and progressively restored the castle to what we see today. It is now owned by the local department.

13th C église Saint-Laurent

Le Château de Morlanne

Rampart selfie ...

The original nail studded doors to the castle near what used to be the drawbridge over the moat

We hitchhiked back from the chateau; this family squeezed us into the back of their car along with their very bemused daughter

Very small day tomorrow. The feet will thank me.