Day 31 Arzacq-Arraziguet to Arthez-de-Béarn

A day of valleys and hills today as we worked our way first south then mostly west across ridges running across our path – more of the same tomorrow I think! It makes for harder walking but the views down the valleys, with hamlets and villages dotted everywhere can be amazing!

We got away from out hotel (another very nice hotel, albeit a bit noisy but with another very nice host) earlier than usual just after 7:15 am, knowing it was a long day. We’d put a fair bit of work into looking for sections where the GR 65 takes the walker off the straightest line (which it frequently does, often taking two sides of a triangle rather than the straight line that would complete the triangle) and, today, mostly took the straightest line, which took about 3km off the walk. Often we found old balises along these shorter routes, which we took to mean that the GR previously took the route we did but had been moved to keep walkers off what we thought were fairly minor and infrequently travelled roads.

After leaving Arzacq, we headed down hill past a man-made lake, up over the first ridge of the day and then down into Louvigny past an old mill. From hear we took our first detour, back up to the next ridge on top of which sat the town of Fichous-Riumayou following the fairly straight road, rather than the indirect track. From there we rejoined the GR 65 down into the next valley, at the bottom of which lay the small village of Larreule, where we had our first stop for some bread, cheese and vegemite and a coffee we bought from a machine at the gite we’d stopped next to. This was the first of only two possible places to buy anything during the day, but we had stocked up in Arzacq so we felt we were prepared.

After Larreule, we again left the GR65,following the valley floor for about 3kms, back in the cornfields again, before heading uphill to rejoin it at Uzan. We stuck with the GR for a couple more kms along the ridge to Géus d’Arzacq before leaving it again to head to Pomps where we stopped for lunch, about 20km into the day.

From Pomps we pretty much stuck to the GR65 again, following the valley floor for about 3km before going up to Castillon (where the lovely little church in the photos is), quickly back down into the next valley and up again (avoiding the now normal zag away from town that the GR takes you on by sticking to the road – we’ve finally learnt after 31 days!), arriving at our lovely accommodation in Arthez by just before 3pm – much earlier than we expected/feared!

27km today and 651km in total😀.