Mist hangs over the peaks first thing but gradually lifts as we get up.

When we leave the owner teaches us Basque for goodbye, which sounds like 'agur-shaktay'. It's a pretty, green drive to St Jean Pied du Port, which we planned to visit today. Driving through, we can see it's an attractive market town with a fort, red and white houses, flowers and a river. but traffic is busy and the pavements which haven't got cars parked on them are rough and cambered so we decide not to try parking.

We programme Snoopy with some of the Route de Fromage. The first part is the wide D923 towards Larceveaux Arros Cibitis then the D918 into St Just Ibarre. Stopping in the village centre we see another of the high, round-topped walls that are in most of the Basque towns. Apparently they are courts for a game called Trinquet, a sort of squash played with mitts rather than racquets.

Here starts the Col d'Osquich, a stunningly beautiful drive climbing and twisting above the valley between rounded near peaks and distant jagged ones. We stop in a layby near Ordiarp for lunch at 1500ft. Sheep graze on the steep descent below us that leads to a vast natural bowl of patchwork fields peppered with little red and white farmsteads, oaks and a few poplars. Apart from the sheep-bells the only other sound is from the high pitched 'mew' of buzzards circling on thermals, rising higher and higher without a single beat of their great wings.

After lunch, the road starts descending steeply towards Garindien and Mauleon-Licharre where we take a break beside the unusual church, which is built of perfectly square-cut and dressed grey stone that looks like polished granite. Inside it is painted in bright hues of pink and blue.

Stone is much more prominent on down here on the valley floor; the timbered houses have given way to sturdy natural stone, brown and dark grey, volcanic looking. Farm walls too are solid stone construction and roofs, many bell-shaped, are tiled in split stone rather than pantiles. Most of the houses have vegetable plots with tomatoes, courgettes, onions and leaf crops. Many farms are growing maize, others have small dairy herds of creamy coloured cows.

We pass slowly through Tardets-Sorholus, a bustling little market town full of roses and run through green woodland alongside the river towards Montoroy. The smooth hiills have turned to more rugged rock faces as we enter the Vallee du Baretous and reach Arette. The town sits on a small flat among the mountains. Mist and cloud is draped over the highest peaks. The aire is mixed parking in the town square. Ali walks around to the butcher's and gets smoked ham sliced from the leg, pate and rillettes, and from small Casino store olives, bread and cheese for a slow, grazing picky-bits supper.