Orthez, closer to mountains

A beautiful day! We luxuriously left the hotel by taxi at 9 am and were driven about 10 kms to make the walk about 19 kms…it turned out to be 17.5 kms and was easy! It was cold and foggy when we started - the cold is very good for energy, as you want to keep moving to keep warm, but the fog lasted longer than yesterday - the sun finally came through at about 12.45, by which time we were hoping we weren’t missing too many views of mountains.

The fog is the price we are paying for this perfect weather - beautiful clear days, except it makes for fog in the morning till the sun burns it off. We are certainly getting hilly, but we are strong now, or the hills aren’t taxing at the moment! I may take back those words when we get more and more mountainous in the next 3 days. But it was very peaceful - still lots of corn. The taxi driver told us that the corn here is all for the animals. We had a good conversation with the taxi driver. Her son had lived in Australia and she had visited him in Queensland. She said she was also to meet us in Orthez in the afternoon to take us to the BandB, as it is a few kms out of town. (We had had instructions to call the hosts)…so that was easy. She told us to go to the bar in the main square and call her when we got there after 3.

Orthez is beautiful. It has a historic medieval part, and a huge tower, part of a castle and ramparts from XIII century, so we had time for a visit to the sights and a bit of a wander before settling into the bar to wait for our ride. And we are now at yet another amazing accommodation with spacious and lovely room. Dinner here.Read more