One more stage of the Voie d’Arles I can do with public transport from Pau.
This time I used the train. A few problems:
1. You can’t buy tickets with bank notes. Eventually one of the staff, whizzing round not sitting in a ticket/info office, was persuaded to give me 5 2-euro coins for a 10-euro nite.
2. The train was half an hour late leaving Pau.
3. There was no ticket machine at Sarrance. Passengers were advised to use the nearest machine – at Oloron.
4. Five minutes before the train back was due to leave Sarrance, its cancellation was announced. Scooted back to the road for a replacement bus, whose driver fortunately was uninterested in my lack of a ticket.
Oloron was full of Pilgrims, many of them Girl Guides from Poland. Once I left the city, I didn’t see anyone else on the GR653. So, when I encountered tricky bits on the narrow path high on the side of a gorge and said aloud “I cannot do this!”, I realised that there was no alternative. So I did it.
Much relieved to come back to a road just outside Sarrance, I could have stopped for refreshments in a popular bistro, but opted for finding out where the station was, and wait there.
Fortunately the replacement bus whisked me back to Pau in time for a quick wash, change and orange juice before the concert in church.
emeritablog: life after work 