Day 28: Morlanne to Masclacq

Never let the moaners tell you France gets nothing done

A stake in local culture and the Frenchie motor hums

The planet’s biggest tourist trap, and France knows why it’s true

They stay at home for countryside, the welcome and the food

24 May 2024, Friday

Distance hiked 24.8km (15.4m)

Ascent 420m

Because today was to be an easy hike (just a half marathon from Pomps to Maslacq, very little ascent, and very little mud) I chose to walk down the hill from Morlanne back to the Chemin at Pomps, rather than benefit from Cécile’s proffered lift.

I don't know if the sign implies beware of walkers, or to look after them

And it was a magnificently pleasant dry day’s hiking. I’m an introvert in the “Myers Briggs” sense of the word, a label that some who know me may find surprising. I am very at home in company and greatly enjoy social occasions. But these expend rather than replenish my energy. I internalise my thoughts to form them, rather than bounce them off other people: any bouncing I do is to refine them and test them, not to derive them. And so time on my own, nicely balanced with the more social and sociable aspects of life, is essential to me. And so it is with walking – I find the balance I’m getting on the Chemin to be perfect, where some days I’m solitary and some I’m spending quality discussion-time with other pilgrims and hikers. And today was largely solitary: splendid!

Even with the added 4km to rejoin the Chemin at Pomps, I had plenty of time on my hands, and, unusually, some fair weather, so I stopped at a picnic table in the shade mid-morning to eat an apple and make some notes. I find sometimes, especially with the kind of social occasion like last night that went on for a fair while and led inebriatedly straight to bed and sleep, that time to make my notes for this record of the walk is difficult to find.

After 5 minutes a couple of similar age to me walked past and decided also to take a seat. They were Vincent and Marie-Pierre, and I would get to know them well, and enjoy their company hugely, over the remaining five days of my journey to St Jean Pied de Port. He’s Swiss, she’s French, and they married at Lectoure Cathedral some twenty years ago because she is from this region (giving them that right). They made two long walking trips over the previous couple of years from their home in the Gruyère region of Switzerland to Lectoure, and they are now walking from Lectoure to St Jean. Such bare facts, interesting ones, we established in the inevitable initial chat between pilgrims, and the other question is “where are you walking to today?” – in their case Maslacq, same as me. And where are you staying? Ferme Bicatou, wow, same as me! We would see each other that evening.

On the outskirts of Arthez a little sign offers hospitality and relief, for free, to pilgrims, outside the ordinary home of a very kindly person

I remained after they left to make a few notes, and later took a lunch break for the other half of yesterday’s sandwich, embellished with my rillettes, at the uninspiring little town of Arthez-de-Béarn (the region is the home of the famous sauce associated with steaks). The views on the walk were magnificent and apart from the sprawling few kilometres through Arthez it was very energising. Not physically challenging but nice and remote and full of opportunity to reflect on life, inspired by the countryside and views of the mountains now only 60 or 70km away (we’re approaching them laterally rather than directly).

I arrived in Maslacq, a sleepy but pretty village, just after 3.15pm when the pharmacy reopened after lunch. I think that timing gives a sense of the pace of life here. And I took advantage to purchase some Nok cream that many people had told me was magnificent for the feet. And it was: from this point onwards, I didn’t use any plasters on the heel areas, any more metatarsal pads, any more preventative or palliative Compeed patches, or any more Vaseline. Just slather the entire foot in Nok, pull on your sock, and you’re sorted.

At the Ferme Bicatou, my chambre d’hôtes destination with a warm welcome and an honesty fridge of refreshments, I saw an empty beer bottle on an outside table. And so I established that Vincent is a man of very similar appetites to mine and he appeared after my first beer so we could share a second together. Over these drinks and the subsequent dinner I established that I liked both Vincent and Marie-Pierre a great deal. He’s a senior manager for the largest supermarket chain in Switzerland (he buys a billion eggs a year). She is a nurse specialising in lymph system treatment with a private home practice. Both are reasonable, intelligent, educated, warm, humorous and, as I always say, both interesting and interested. Perfect companions at home, at work, or particularly on the Chemin. Just go back to that sentence, by the way: yes, the Francophone Swiss, unlike in my experience (which is extensive, given my insurance career) those of Germanic extraction, can be genuinely witty and charming. And so, indeed, Vincent is.

At dinner I found that my path had met yet again at the same node as Dominique’s, but other than she and my new friends this was a table of fresh faces for me. All of them were women and they were all friendly and charming.

It is interesting that this dinner table’s socio-demographic mix was the perfect encapsulation of this Spring’s Chemin. We were ten at the table. 8 were women, and rather astonishingly 80% of the pilgrims were indeed female. Vincent, Marie-Pierre and I are in our early 50s, and were the youngest at the table: this too felt representative, at least in terms of average age. Certainly well under 10% of the pilgrims were under 35. Only two people out of ten were a couple – this felt about right. Only one person was not a native French speaker (me) and one other was a non-French francophone (Vincent). This all felt bang on for representation of this year’s Chemin, with the vast majority being French and a good part of the non-French being French-speaking Swiss or Belgians (also francophone Canadians). Such unusuality as there was included the fact that I spoke French, for most native English speakers don’t, and the fact the non-francophone was British. I met not a single other British person on the walk over nearly 5 weeks of hiking, while Canadians, Australians, Kiwis and Americans were quite plentiful.

The young couple in their twenties, Marjolaine and Matthias, who run the chambres d’hôtes business took it on, from her parents, just this season. I had a chat over a beer after dinner with Matthias and they love it. Childhood sweethearts from this same small village, they are making their life where they grew up, and they’re making a very good fist of it. Dinner had been a healthy and tasty soup, roast pork (a nice change from duck!), and a freshly composed pannacotta with strawberries: I’m always amazed how these French domestic goddesses, like my wife actually, can rustle up such meals for a dozen people, day after day. They have four daughters under the age of 7, too: quite a handful! It’s a nice illustration of why France works so well, by the way. We have, from afar, an impression of laziness, with 35 hour working weeks, strikes a-plenty, and obscenely early state-funded retirement. But give people a stake in their own lives and economic outcomes, and their own business embedded in the heritage and culture of their region, and they work hard and effectively. While France doesn’t have a silicon valley of digital startups it certainly has culture and history, as well as enough people, even in their twenties, who want to work hard and long to make it work.

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