This was a festival weekend: “FESTIVAL PEAUX À PAU”, literally “skins in Pau” but I think it’s a pun. Anyway, there have been free music festivals in Hédas, a ravine running through the middle of the city.
Friday was percussion night with several corners hosting bands of all ages banging anything from drums to glass bottles with different levels of water. Some combined percussion with dance, shaking rattles and tambourines.
But I didn’t have my phone with me, so I went back on Saturday to take photos. The theme was “Funky style brass”, and this was a warm-up group who started their programme with “We will, we will rock you.”
I didn’t stay for the maim show on the big stage, but this is what it looked like while waiting for the band:
Between my two visits to Hédas, I went for a walk. My intention on Saturday morning was to take a bus to Gan, where they were also supposed to be having a festival, and walk back along a ridge to Jurançon for a bus back across the river to Pau. However, on discovering I would have to wait 45 minutes for a bus to Gan, I decided to do it in reverse.
I hadn’t researched the #1 bus route, and got off at the wrong stop, which took about 3 km to rectify. After that, it was easy to find where the path left the road to go over the first hill and back to the road again. A side road descended steeply to a hairpin bend.
At another hairpin bend, a school had made good use of its pelote wall to make a useful map of the area, making it clear that I should turn left into the woodland immediately after passing the school.
This was a steep and muddy path followed by a broad track churned up by tractors, and then I came to the first footpath signpost seen on the walk.
The path passed a farm with a friendly donkey, and continued along the ridge. Too much vegetation for good views. It became a road, and a turning offered me a “petite randonnée” (yellow waymarks) which looked like the way I had meant to go.
I now know that I should have turned left down a steep path disappearing into woodland after passing a house. But the PR sign said “straight on” and it wasn’t clear to me that the path really was one. So I pressed on, eventually coming to a T junction. I sat on a log for a drink, and was about to consult my map when a young woman came walking along the D road. She told me that, as I suspected, the road did go to Gan, and that it was only about 10 minutes away. I think it was double that!
Anyway, I arrived, crossing a very pretty bridge.
Feeling rather hungry after walking nearly 11 miles, I headed for a restaurant on the main square and asked for the “menu du midi”. I was too late; it was two o’clock and all the food had gone, but they could probably find me a plate of charcuterie. That sounded much too salty, so I asked if they had ice cream. Yes. Lemon and blackcurrant sorbet with whipped cream.
Then it started raining, and, with no sign of festival activity in Gan, I took the bus back to Pau.
emeritablog: life after work 