Day Twenty-Nine: What's That Noise?
A rainy Sunday in the country -- yes, this will be a short entry. The petit dejeuner of the Auberge de Lausset is the plainest possible -- bread, tea, butter, jam, sugar -- but it's the best damn bread I've eaten in France -- where, as you know, the competition is stiff. They interpret the idea of "black tea" very literally. Mademoiselle whisks away your key from under your elbow while you eat, and Martinizes your room into spotless perfection -- one hesitates to bring one's gritty old carcass over the threshold to spoil such sparkling cleanliness.
Pleasantry of lodging across from a church on Sunday morning: voices upraised in gentle song. Not so pleasant: the bells. The bells!
Took a meander through the sopping-wet countryside as far north as Lucq-de-Bearn, as far south as Mauleon. I had no idea we were so close to the border of Basque country --- all the road signs west of the Oloron are bilingual. New form of French radio call-in quiz torment -- "Qu'est-ce que c'est la bruit?" or "What's that noise?", where hapless listeners call in and make far-flung guesses about an exceedingly indeterminate thump. I began to get sleepy, and the gas gauge was getting low, so I turned back innwards arriving, after a perfectly filthy stretch of lane between Barcus and St. Blaise, safely for a snoozy afternoon.