We finally had a chilly night last night! It dipped to 14 degrees and we were cold without our sleeping bags zipped up. The day started quickly but was cold. The route started with 10-15km decent in a pretty straight line at a perfect slope to not require braking.
At 20km viki got pekkish and we had cold muesli with powdered milk just outside a tiny village church (we typically stop near village churches now for our break – there’s often a picnic table and it’s nicer than the side of the road by a farm). At 40km struggled to find, but eventually found an open cafe in the town of Tarbes. The scenery today brought the pyranees back into view, which were a nice change from the endless crop fields from the last couple days.
At 65km we stopped for lunch and a nap by another tiny village church. We had camembert, which we’ve had a lot of in previous trips, but the first time this trip (it’s very cheap, but also gets stinky when left out in the sun for more than a few hours). Another thing we’ve noticed in every village, event tiny ones, is the village “Mairie”, which seems to be like the local governmental building.
Pretty quickly we rolled into Pau, our final destination, where we’re staying in a hotel (we’ve decided to stay in a hotel every second night now). Pau is very cool architecturally, having played a prominent role in local history and buildings having existed since the 1200s. Our cheap €36 hotel room was pretty abysmal and hadn’t been cleaned fully, so after complaining, they upgraded us to the normal non-budget room, which is fine. We then biked into town for a romantic French dinner at the Canard Royal, where we shared the full duck platter, which was most tasty.
