Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air.

Macbeth Act 1, Scene 1 – William Shakespeare

When I poked my nose out of the window this morning, I could sense that in terms of the weather, all was not well with the world in this corner of south west France. It was, as they say in Scotland, dreich!

Breakfast chez Cathy was a simple affair. A bowl of coffee, a few slices of toasted bread and a miniscule receptacle of apricot jam. It was no more than I expected.

As Cathy drove me back to the bridge over the Arros river where she had picķed me up the previous evening, I enquired about the identity of the other guests at supper.

The lady sat opposite me was another of Cathy’s sisters. The man slumped in the armchair turned out to be one of her brothers, while the mysterious man in the yellow baseball cap at the end of the table was Cathy’s ‘companion’. All was now clear!

The gite at Les Moulins des Baronnies was clearly in high demand which explained why they had no room for me the previous evening. There was a gift shop next to the gite selling all sorts of local products while in the car park I spotted a huge campervan and a trailer with a Spider bike. This was obviously the place to come on holiday.

As the drizzle teemed down, I was faced with the first serious decision of the day. Should I risk the hazardous mountain route to Bagnères de Bigorre or opt for the lowland route by road. Discretion proved the greater part of valour and I opted for the low level route by road.

The Cistercian monastery of Escaladieu provided an opportunity to escape from the rain and take a 30 minute break.

Founded in 1142, Escaladieu was built at the confluence of the Luz and Arros rivers near the castle of Mauvezin.

The abbey flourished from the 12th to 14th centuries. It served as the burial place for the counts of Bigorre and was a stop on the pilgrimage route to Santiago. It was rebuilt in the 17th century before being abandoned in 1830, the surviving buildings givr little sense of the Abbey’s former stature within the Cistercian Order.

I looked around the exhibition of mediaeval art, most of which was fairly bizarre. Reinterpretations of mediaeval illustrated psalters included a painting of a man in a suit being bombarded with falling cats! Only in France!

Later during the morning I  stumbled across the isolated chapel of Notre Dame de Roumé on the road to Bagnères de Bigorre. Built in thr 12th century on the pilgrim route to Compostella, it must be quite a sight on a sunny day with the Pyrenees in the distance. Despite the dreich weather, I took the opportunity to shelter from the rain and dig into the ham and sausage I’d bought the previous day in Arès.

Shortly before Bagnères de Bigorre, I again took refuge from the rain in a bus shelter and polished off the sausage. I needed something to lift my spirits as the rain continurf to teem down.

I stumbled into Bagnères de Bigorre shortly after 2pm and made straight to the pilgrim accommodation site in the centre of town. 

As I entered town, I noticed that Bagnères is twinned not with just one place in the UK but two – Malvern (both towns have hot springs) and since 2015, Inverurie in Scotland. Who makes such twinning decisions is anybody’s guess as is why a town in the far north east of Scotland would choose to twin itself with a fading spa town near the Pyrenees!

In the shelter of my room in the pilgrim refuge of the Abbey of Notre Dame, I wondered what to do next. With further incessant rain forecast for the next 5 days, it was maybe time to revise my walk programme! Despite having something of a masochistoc streak, if there is one thing that doesn’t really fill my heart with joy, it’s the thought of trudging along muddy tracks, soaked to the bone by heavy incessant rain. Who knows, maybe by a miracle the clouds will clear tomorrow. If not, then like the outgoing French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, who today lost a parliamentary no confidence vote, I may be ‘on my bike’ and heading home. Who knows what tomorrow will bring!