Inter- Hotel De Gramont Pau

... the ruins at Delphi - for a sense of the sheer reach of human history; the museum at Athens, with the see-through floor revealing something of those times.
Lows: all of Albania really - the sheer poverty of our near-neighbours. And, not to be too trivial, but the weather in Greece: hard to take the grey skies... especially when so sunny in UK! Having had it as a target since way back, it did tarnish the dream somewhat!!
And so life goes....on.

... the same statuettes and bottles in which to collect your holy water. It was difficult to feel any empathy with the people there when it seems to us to be little more than a huge sales opportunity for the church. Difficult to like but interesting to visit!

Mike could recognize very little of Pau as expected. It seemed a lot bigger, but it was interesting to revisit the were Mike spent a miserable and lonely month all those years ago

... no introduction. After a bit of

souvenir shopping at the top (where there is also a great café with some interesting Tour de

France artefacts), we descend to St Marie De Campan, and from here to our hotel in Campan.

WHAT I EXPERIENCED:

We had just climbed the Col d'Aubisque and I was almost at the bottom of the Col behind my friend, Paul Middlemiss, when the ...

... 169m) and the Col De Pinodieta (176m) before lunch.

The walled town of St Jean Pied de Port offers a perfect lunch stop, and then we cycle on to our first proper climb over the Col D’ Osquich (500m). The sign of the small town of Arudy will no doubt be very welcome at the end of this 180km monster day! We get our Raid carnet stamped twice today – we are well on our way!

WHAT I EXPERIENCED:

So, nearly ready for the off! Thankfully, false alarm about arrival of guests to take over house in absence means we have one more day in which to prepare... much needed!
We will just about get there - I think.
Round about now it occurs to us we really ought to have assembled scooter on trailer and gone for little spin to test strapping arrangement, etc... just to make sure it all holds up. Oh well, the road will be a good test of all that... I guess.

... able to meet up with Sian and Florin who had been there for almost an hour themselves - they were lucky enough to get a driver who took them right to the spot they wanted to get dropped at. After about another 20 minutes Andrei and Lisa made it a full house by 7pm - not bad group effort for the first day. Andrei had been in contact with our hosts Emilie and we were able to go to hers after 8pm so we amused ourselves for a little while before heading to hers.

Hey-ho tout le monde!! The 'hizzle' is for you Kaylee Jo, if you happen to read this. Today is yet another lovely day of greve (strike) in France. Aside from the nearly two week long strike of the students in university all over France, this is a different one comprised of all the public service workers. I agree with them though, Sarkozy has just augmented his salary by 142% and yet seems to have a problem raising the workers' salaries by a ...

... France), which all the same assigns the cow to a whole new level of undesirabity on par with Hades the god of the underworld. " Il pleut comme vache qui pisse " Ca veut dire, " It's raining like a ******* cow ". Slightly more vulgar, but delightfully useful here in Pau, where literally every other day it does indeed "pleut comme vache qui pisse". " Ce rouge est vachement bon " Ca se traduit literally "This ...

... raison d'etre to strike up French conversation with whomever they see. At least for me and my new friend Wen (who told me I could call him Louis if I wanted), it's the highlight of our day to have a good chat in French with n'importe qui. For my part, I'm insane. I am obsessed with milking my French experience for all it's worth to the point that it puts me in a bad mood the days when I do nothing but talk in English to my American peers ...

... an attempt to consolodate time. Un petit commentaire additionel on the topic of travel writing in general. In my own personal case, it feels presumptuous to think that I could have any particularly worthwhile insights to offer on French culture. I enjoy writing, but I have never written anything profound or "important." I don't ...