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French was stretched to its utmost. Another couple came to dinner too, and as the conversation grew more animated it became only too easy to lose the thread altogether. I tried to make up for my lack of verbal contribution by looking attentive and intelligent, and fortunately this seemed to work, for every so often someone would say kindly ‘Oh Bettina understands everything, it is only talking she finds difficult’ — a misconception I did nothing to correct. I went to bed eventually, beautifully wined and dined but as exhausted as if I had just sat a gruelling examination paper.
    The Legrains had kindly invited me to stay on for a day or two, but much as I liked them and would have enjoyed exploring this pretty part of Aquitaine in their company, now was not the time. After even so short a break I found myself eager to get back to the Chemin de Compostelle , to the more rigorous conditions, the close contact with nature, the periods of silence and the challenge of the road itself with its surprises and revelations. The pilgrimage, I was discovering imposed its own disciplines, together with its rewards, and turning aside to make visits did not really fit in with its demands.
    I made an early start, and once again toiled up and down steep-sided countryside in a gentle warm downpour, and once I was thoroughly wet I quite enjoyed it, for the pretty cows with their long-fringed lashes, which I now knew to be a breed called Blanche d’Aquitaine , still poked their heads quizzically over the walls and fences as I passed.
    Seeing the rare phenomenon of an open church at Sauveterre de Bearn, just before the crossing of the southern arm of the Gave, I seized the opportunity to get out of the rain for a while and have my record stamped. The priest, a born comic, said ‘Beaucoup de descentes maintentant madame,' adding after a short pause, ‘ et montsaussi, naturellement .’ He was quite right, the gradients increased as the symbol for a good view became more plentifully peppered over the map.
    By mid-afternoon, when I was long past enjoying the rain, I arrived at Saint Palais, which from its name had led me to expect at least some vestiges of splendour and comfort. Alas for my expectations, I found it a down-at-heel place, made infinitely more so by the puddles, the soaked walls and the absence of lunch, the hour for which was long past. On the corner of the Avenue Gibraltar (nothing to do with the Rock, but a Basque corruption of the name St Saveur) I came upon the shabby priory of the Franciscans which seemed the oldest building there. I called in and my record was stamped and inscribed ‘Paix et Joie' with the Basque equivalent underneath — which as far as I could make it out reads ‘Bake ta Bozkario'.
    Gibraltar is the spot where the three routes, from Vézelay, Le Puy and Paris come together, and today a stele marks the junction. Had there been a place of refreshment instead, it would have seemed altogether more appropriate, but at least my arrival at the stele marked a halt in the rain, and I pressed on more cheerfully to Ostabat. Alas, here too I drew a blank, there was not even a village shop to sell a hungry bicyclist a bit of dry bread. Ostabat, the first pilgrim halt after the joining of the routes, had once boasted as many as twenty hospices. Now even the damp depressing-looking church was locked. Hopes were raised, however, when I was hailed in English from the steps of the building opposite, an Hôtel de Ville currently in the process of being rescued from total decay. ‘Come and have a cup of coffee,’ called a man, a Basque it transpired, who seemed to be in charge there. As soon as I was inside and had shed my dripping waterproof, the young man pushed the coffee jar aside after only the most cursory glance at it, remarking casually ‘Only enough for a weak American brew’, which made me suspect that I had been lured in under false pretences. Not that I could blame him. If I had to spend time in such a