Saturday, August 25, 2012

Westwards via Foix and the Bearn

After a very relaxing week in Cagnes-sur-Mer, 'tis time to hit the road again, this time direction Biarritz, in the South-West France. Since Biarritz is rather a long drive from the Cote d'Azur, we decided to spend the night in Foix, on the way.

We hit the road pretty early, and decided to stop for lunch in Saint-Gilles, located in the Camargue (a big swampy area, basically at the Rhone river delta). Saint-Gilles is a famous pilgrimage town (it's on the Santiago de Compostella), with a well-known abbey church being the highlight of the old town. Unfortunately, we really struggled to find an open restaurant, so we ended up having a kebab. Well, pretty good value for money, at least!

Our stomachs filled, we carried on towards our final destination for the day, Foix. Foix is the main town in the Ariege department, located at the foot of the Pyrenees, near the Spanish border. After checking in at our hotel (located a bit outside the town center), we headed off to explore Foix (with the rather long-winded tongue twister Mathilde told me ringing in my head: “Il était une fois, une marchande de foie qui vendait du foie dans la ville de Foix. Elle se dit 'ma foi, c'est la première fois et la dernière fois que je vends du foie dans la ville de Foix.”). Foix is a quite a typical provincial French town – with the distinction of having a stunning castle overlooking the town. After a most pleasant walk around town, we found a rather curious organic food restaurant, where we decided to have dinner. An excellent choice, although we were a bit perplexed as to why we were the only guests at the place, considering the quality of the food (as opposed to the tourist traps in the center of town, filled with customers...).

The next day, we headed westwards, stopping by to visit a curious attraction – the underground river of
Labouiche. We decided to take the guided tour (only option if you want to visit the place), on a boat. It was rather a fascinating underground journey, taking us 1.5 kilometers, through twisted tunnels and caverns, past stalagmites, stalactites and other funny rock formations. A very interesting way to spend a couple of hours!

The next step of our journey was Pau, which is the capital of the historic region Bearn (you know, as in sauce Bearnaise). Having parked our car, we started hunting for a place to eat, trying to ignore the rain pouring down. A lot of places were already closed, as we were a bit late, but we did eventually find a quite nice eatery to sate our raving appetites...

The main sight in Pau is the historic castle, which is the birthplace of Henry IV, who was king of Navarre and France (and apparently an excellent king, at that). It's mainly a military castle, having been built in the middle ages, dominating as it does Pau. We took the (mandatory) guided tour, well worth it. The interior of the castle has seen quite a lot of changes over the centuries, especially under the reign of Louis-Philippe, during the 19
thcentury. All in all, a pretty good way to spend a rainy afternoon!

I reckon the city itself would have merited a bit more exploration as well, but alas we didn't have time, as we were expected in Biarritz. Another time, perhaps!

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