Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James (41 page)

Another brand of timeless magic emanated from the Romanesque sculptures of the 11th-century abbey at Moissac. Further south, the Gers Region turned out to be a patchwork of farmlands studded with storybook hilltop villages such as Miradoux and Lectoure. There we’d dined at a B&B with a cloistered nun who, after a life of adventure, had taken a vow of silence. She was out on medical leave, and was anything but silent. But she seemed happy, genuinely glad in her unlikely choice of what might appear to be imprisonment. Most surprising of all, I felt I understood her and had no desire to judge or ridicule her for her seemingly retrograde choice of lifestyle. Perhaps I had changed a little, after all.

Images from our trek were flashing by thick and fast in my head now, stimulated by the stamps on the passport. Rising up like the Emerald City among the orchards and woods of the Gers, La Romieu startled us. A megalomaniac pope had built the gloomy sanctuary seven hundred years ago to celebrate his own glory, and diverted the Way of Saint James to reach it.

Until we wandered into Navarrenx, we’d never heard of it. This walled fortress-city served as a prototype for others erected by my favorite military engineer, the heroic Vauban, he whose castle we’d visited in Burgundy back at the start of our trek. Nor did we expect to meet the town’s ninety-year-old Second World War death-camp survivor, a man still full of inspirational vitality and curiosity. He said he felt no bitterness. He was not angry. He was glad to be alive and talking. And talking.

For weeks now the divine views of Pyrenees peaks had enticed us further south into emerald Basque Country and, on our penultimate day, this very morning, we’d almost been undone by the attractions of Vauban’s masterpiece, the walled citadel of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. It turned out to be the Basque Beaune between Occupied and Free9HCh, complete with elephant train for tired tourists with or without scallop shells. I could have stayed, lounging at a café by the roaring Nave River or marching along the ramparts, waiting for Vauban or Louis XIV to show up. They didn’t, so we bought supplies and girded our loins.

“Snow,” said a butcher in a tidy shop where we assembled our picnic of Basque ham and cheese.

“Wind and rain,” rebutted a customer. He was wearing camouflage hunting gear and winked at us.

We feasted and watched a few dozen of the twenty-five thousand pilgrims who each year rashly begin their pilgrimage to Santiago from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port—with a killer, mile-high climb that decimates their ranks. Later, a red-faced pilgrim clutching scallop shells retreated past us in a taxi. Several others followed. Luckily, we’d long ago metamorphosed into mountain goats. We even had our bells.

We’d nearly reached the end of our tramp, a little wiser and not too much worse for wear. It was as if all the months of walking, talking, thinking, reflecting, opening ourselves uI tried to com

p to each other and welcoming the outside world into our heads and hearts had been in preparation for this last stretch, the final push up the Pyrenees.

“I’ve come to the end,” I said to Alison, who’d put away the binoculars.

“The end of what?”

“Memory Lane.”

After a frugal repast at gue’s table and now back in our wind-buffeted upstairs room, our current panoramic setting and leap-of-faith situation reminded me of our last night in Burgundy, staring out at the primal Roche de Solutré from President Mitterrand’s Résistance-era hideout. I hadn’t slept much that night, and wasn’t expecting to tonight, either, despite the accumulated fatigue. I stretched out and floated on runner’s high. The main difference was, I felt no pain as I had when a cross-country runner, no anxiety, and the high was constant. Elation seemed the best word. I hoped Alison was feeling it too. Judging by the deep stillness of her breathing, Morpheus, as usual, was coddling her. She heard no wind rattling the panes. The mounting gale had picked up force, if that were still possible. The farm already felt as if it were spinning into the Kansas sky.

I watched my wife with something akin to awe. Neither sleeplessness nor noise nor time itself had ever troubled her. The troika had yapped at me, keeping me running for years. Now time felt different. It slipped and slid like a Möbius strip, an odd-shaped continuum. Days, weekends, weeks, months, years, millennia no longer meant what they had. Fossils were yesterday. I’d developed an affinity for infinity, a fondness for finitude. It probably wasn’t finitude at all, just a twist in the strip, a reshuffling of sub-atomic particles. My unspoken fears of the unknown and my anger at so many things had dropped by the wayside, like that talking pedometer. Serenely savoring the sequences, the unexpected segues of life, was what the rest of mine was going to be about. And sound sleep, too, despite the driving gale. With that gentle promise in mind, my eyes popped open. The gloaming had magically merged with a spectacular dawn. I roused Alison and we saddled up.

LOOKING BACK, LEANING FORWARD

Fifteen vertical miles separate Huntto from Roncesvalles. We tanked up on coffee, consumed as many calories as the good Brother would give us, and left before dawn’s light had fully revealed the number of heavily armed hunters stationed nearby. Without Google or even a vintage transistor radio, there was no way to be sure, but I estimated the www.openroadmedia.com/newslettersedogusting winds at 80 to 100 mph. Speech was problematic. We communicated with signals, and wound up holding hands, then alternately pushing and pulling each other forward. Despite having visited about 959 churches en route without much effect, I thought of the Holy Ghost depicted asBrother Ourtia

a dove, and hoped we and the squabs would survive the crossing. Hunters to the left and right began raising their guns, only to topple over in the wind without firing a shot, the pigeons swirling overhead. It was miraculous.

Near the Virgin of Biakorri, a shrine amid boulders with see-forever views back to France, a nun stumbled past, clutching her winged hat. I swear she leaped and flew—a yard or so at a time—singing andcrying. Alison tried to get a photo of her but was blown over by the wind.

“A breeze,” I shouted, cupping my hands. “No sign of snow.”

Approaching Col de Bentarte, GR-65 reverts to a proto-historical dirt trail, climbs between pinnacles, and snakes through the celebrated pass where the knight Roland blew his horn, calling for Charlemagne to save him. Unfortunately for Roland, Charlemagne arrived too late. Even if he’d been by my side, I wouldn’t have heard Roland’s hoots: the roar of the wind was deafening. We were beginning to wonder if we, too, would leave our mortal coils behind at the pass. Buffeted by the gale, we had our last, achingly scenic view of the country we’d crossed. It didn’t reach to Le Puy-en-Velay, but almost.

I stared for a long while and held Alison tight: our windbreakers had become sails. Quiet triumph and joy filled me. We’d talked the walk, and walked the walk, and talked, talked, talked for months until our thoughts and feelings and irrational urges had become as round and familiar as long-sucked candies. I knew that for me many of the most intense moments on our journey had come laughing and

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAVID Da { font-size: 75%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 1e was calledOWNIE is a San Franciscan who moved to Paris in the mid-1980s and now divides his time between France and Italy. His travel, food, and arts features have appeared in over fifty leading print publications worldwide. He is currently a European contributor to the Internet’s popular literary travel Web site Gadling. com, and co-owner and operator (with Alison Harris) of Paris, Paris Tours (custom walking tours of Paris, Burgundy, Rome, and the Italian Riviera).

Downie is the author of ten nonfiction books and two thrillers, most recently
Paris City of Night
. His nonfiction books include
Enchanted Liguria: A Celebration of the Culture, Lifestyle and Food of the Italian Riviera
(Rizzoli International);
Cooking the Roman Way: Authentic Recipes from the Home Cooks and Trattorias of Rome
(HarperCollins); and
Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light
, a critically acclaimed collection of travel essays (Broadway Books/ Random House). Downie’s latest food-and-wine-related books are
Food Wine The Italian Riviera
&
Genoa, Food Wine Rome
, and
Food Wine Burgundy
, all in the Terroir Guides series published by The Little Bookroom. Also published in 2011 is
Quiet Corners of Rome
, a loving exploration of the Eternal City, with striking photos by Alison Harris. In 2013 Downie launched his first app, featuring the history of Paris: the Paris Timeline.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER

ALISON HARRIS is a professional photographer based in Paris. Her work has been published by HarperCollins, The Little Book-room, Rizzoli, Chronicle Books, Stewart Tabori & Chang, and Random House, among others. Her latest book
Paris in Love
is published by Parisgramme. She graduated with a degree in Art History from Mount Holyoke College. Harris exhibits regularly in Europe and the United States. A selection of her Paris photographs is in the Musée Carnavalet (Paris Historical Museum) and the Paris Historical Library. Harris is an inveterate walker. The photographs made while walking across France with her husband, David Downie, are part of an ongoing photo essay about France. A selection of these photographs is published for the first time in
Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic walks the Way of Saint James
.
www.alis along pilgrimage route, Burgundy.t while walkingonharris.com

Murus Gallicus
/Gallic rampart, Bibracte, Burgundy.

Vineyards, Cote d’Or, Burgundy.