Nullement une course.
La caminata està lenta. Marcada de pausas, de intentos, para fijar "poesía" en el paisaje. Un ritmo proprio, de la marcha de los portadores, encontrándose con el paisaje.
De ningún modo una carrera.
Slowly but surely we proceed toward the Pyrenees and the Spanish border. Another short stage today, as it's raining and forecast to get worse in the afternoon. Once outside Lescar, on the outskirts of the city of Pau, today's stage was very green. We stopped in the village of Artiguelouve, first to watch a children's soccer tournament, then at a café that was miraculously open on a public holiday, and then again to take photographs of each other with the statue of Saint Jacques.
We passed a winery, took a muddy path through the woods, and rounded a corner to find the Pyrenees had come even closer overnight!
Luckily the rain began when we were right by a bus shelter where we could stop and put on our raingear. It soon slowed down to a gentle shower which didn't cause too much trouble for walking.
We came to the village of Lacommande, built in the 12th century specifically for the protection of pilgrims headed toward Col de Somport, the pass over the Pyrenees, halfway between the cathedral towns of Lescar and Oloron-Sainte-Marie.
The village has a beautiful church and 17th century graveyard, next to the old pilgrim hostelry, now an exhibition centre, and the new one where we are housed in rather crowded quarters with the appropriately named French pilgrim Jacques and another German pilgrim, Wilfried.
There is no charge to use the washer and dryer here so we have taken advantage of that, and bought some pasta, sauce and rather too many bottles of wine from the winery across the road for our communal dinner!
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| 17th and 18th century cemetery, with the pilgrim hostelry (the present one is on the left, while the larger old one, now an exhibition centre, is on the right) |
Lescar - Lacommande 14.5 km
Hi Joanne,
ReplyDeleteI am beginning my camino in 3 weeks from Lescar, so I was excited to see your post pop up in the Facebook group! I have a couple of questions.
The gite in Lescar - is that the only pilgrim accommodation there? I'd read somewhere that there was a new place built recently. Also: did you have to book this place, or the one in Lacommande, in advance?
Glad to hear you can buy food and wine in Lacommande! I'd heard that wasn't possible there so I was thinking of buying food in the village before.
Will be following your progress. Buen Camino and Bon Appetit!
Angela
Hi Angela, sorry I did not reply earlier, I had not been checking my comments! I don't recall booking in advance in these places. In France however it is normally a good idea to check with them first by phone, if you can. We had a couple of nasty surprises with gîtes that were closed, the furst two nights out of Toulouse. After that no problems though. I guess you are on your way now - bon chemin !
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