Sitting at the park across from our guesthouse, waiting for it to open

Our guesthouse on the left, ruins of an old church on the right

The rivers Aspe and Ossau pass through a Oloron, Sainte Marie, this one is the Aspe

OSM is divided into 3 "Quartiers", named after the 3 churches, this one is Saint Croix

It's an 11th century church, built with conquests gained during the crusades in Jerusalem.

A view of the lower part of OSM taken from the Saint Croix neighborhood where we stayed

It's a beautiful city, nestled into the Pyrenees

Beautiful sycamore trees, like so many we've seen throughout parks in France and Spain

Another view of the church of Saint Croix

This part of an old bridge looks like a battlement

Walking back up the hill after dinner, we saw many charming old houses

WCs: u walk past the urinals to access booths, wouldn't fly in prudish America 🤣

1st Day in Oloron Sainte Marie

September 12, 2023 in France ⋅ 🌧 72 °F

We arrived in Oloron Sainte-Marie yesterday afternoon after riding two trains from Toulouse, then walked a long and rather steep hill (good Camino, practice!) to our guest house. Oloron is a beautiful small city, very old and graceful, nestled in a valley fronting the Pyrenees.
Our guesthouse owners are a retired couple from Paris, very hospitable and accommodating. They insisted on driving us to a restaurant last night, and would have come to retrieve us, but we managed to walk back up the hill instead.
Today we walked back down the hill to explore the city a bit, buying lunch from the grocery store.Read more