Saturday - Dax-Peyrehorade
This morning cloudy and noticeably cooler, so decided not to head up to the Somport, but take the train back to Dax to continue on the route south. This time the Pyrenees were hiding themselves and were not visible from the boulevard.
The markings lead over the river and to the cathedral at Dax; though this is a generally rather dull building, it contains the remains of the C12/C13 portal with sculptures of the Last Judgement and statues of the apostles, including, of course, St James.
I must have been so excited by this that I missed the markings, which apparently take a side route to the next village of St-Pandelon, and ended up batting along the road - easy to follow, but rather tedious.
From St-P, the route follows quiet lanes to the village of Cagnotte, where the church is what’s left of the former C12 Benedictine abbey. In the village is a restaurant/bar called the St Jacques, where I stopped off for a beer and sandwich. The owner is obviously interested in the route, as there is a display on one of the walls, and an invitation to sign a livre d’or. If you prefer to have a picnic, there is a nice little picnic site by the abbey church, which is further on, by a little river; here there is a water tap, and a mapboard showing the chemins de St-Jacques.
From here, the route at last leaves tarmac and takes a nice track through a forest, where the route forks, one fork going the long way round to Sorde, the other direct to Peyrehorade. I picked the latter and arrived in time for the train to, yes, Bayonne again. There is a *** hotel in P. (and a pilgrim refuge in the abbey buildings at Sorde), but I had to get back to Bordeaux for my flight the next day, so sadly could not complete the route to St-Palais.
After Dax, the terrain becomes decidedly hillier, as you leave the Landes and start to approach the mountains. However, the mountains were only just visible in the haze from just before Peyrehorade. No doubt in clearer weather they would be visible considerably before that.
Dinner in one of the many restaurants along the Nive, having a Basque speciality called axoa (the ‘x’ is pronounced like English ’sh’, I was told) of veal. No idea what this means, but it tasted good. For once, I sat inside, as it was getting rather cool for sitting outside.
22km