Grim night's sleep. Due mostly to having the worst bed ever. It seemed to have a central pivot about which it rocked noisily from side to side. It was also a couple of inches too short which meant I couldn't quite straighten my knees (I guess oversize people like John Harris get this all the time). I was also suffering from a touch of bilateral chaffing which made me a bit concerned about getting back in the saddle. Other medical problems also seemed to take it in turns to flare up during the night: sore left hamstrings, toothache (from a molar which has had a temporary filling - just for the trip - and in need of the dreaded root canal work as soon as I get back to Blighty), neckache and a shooting pain from a nerve somewhere my left palm. Oh, and a bruised big toe nail too! Yes, not a good night. Also much to think about...
Not sure which direction to cycle today. The choices are either due east into a fairly remote area or SE via Pau to Lourds. Given my current ailments, Lourds is worth considering. Although I bet there'll be more of those pilgrims there. A strange thing with those pilgrims is that they tend to string themselves out evenly along the road. You'd think they'd group together for a chat. And talk about how they should've brought a change of clothes and carried some water and maybe a bag of Werthers (I always like to suck a Werthers on a long trip). But they don't. Weird. It's like they've been washing the dishes in, say, Geneva or Arras for example, and just thought "I'd better do that trip to Santiago de Compostella before I get too old". Probably, I guess, they just dried their hands and walked straight out the door having packed nowt! "Bye bye, see you in however many months or years it takes". Pilgrims!
They hotelier last night asked us if we were pilgrims!
Leaving our hotel this morning, we travelled the 40K down to Pau (it was from Pau that we'd decide which direction to take). It was fairly flat into Pau and we picked up a bit of a tail wind too. Easy. We arrived in lower Pau at around mid day. I noticed a public lift that we could use to get up to the higher level of Pau. It was just big enough to take our bikes. On the higher level we could see the Pyrenees clearly. Stopped to share a pizza for lunch. Chatted there to a couple who'd just cycled up a few of the big Pyrenean climbs that they go over on Le Tour. They put us off going to Lourds. They said it was a very tacky place. Full of ice cream sellers and plastic effigies of religious icons.
So we headed due west. Across some very hilly roads (not unexpected in the foothills of the Pyrenees) until we got to, and holed up in, a small town called Vic-en-Bigorre. Never heard of it. We only got here by random chance: along the way there was a fork in the road, one way said Vic-en-Bigorre, the other said Lembeye. At that instant the word Vic brought an image of my friend Andrew 'Vic' Vickery to mind (not a pretty thought I must say!) but that was enough to cause me to follow that road. My own version of Sliding Door.
(Part of the reason we were making up the route on the hoof is because JC had worked out and penned a possible route on her hand over breakfast. But then accidentally removed it when she washed her hands after lunch).
Ended up cycling about 90K today. So I must stop writing this drivel now and do some serious stretching. Of my stomach.
Weather's very nice.