Post It from Camping Aire sur l’Ardour, Aquitaine, France. Saturday 14th June, 2014.

As we left Castiello de Jaca on the Friday morning we once again encountered the Guardia Civil out in force just before the French border. They waved us to slow down at the armed check point and then for whatever reason waved us on. This had happened as we entered Spain from Portugal when we had our passports checked on that occasion but it did make me wonder if they are doing these checks for a particular reason as it is not normal.

We had a lovely slow drive up through the Somport Tunnel and down the French side of the Pyrenees to Pau and on to Aire sur l’Ardour when we planned to perhaps stay for a couple of nights as the site was on the banks of the River Ardour and right in the centre of the town.

We arrived quite early to find the town was in full the flow of a Feria which started in earnest that evening at the bull ring, adjacent the site. A fun fair was set up just a few hundred meters further in the town centre and all the shops were decked out in red and white, the colours of the Feria which is an annual event.

The site owners were good enough to tell us there was expected to be a lot of noise that night and that there were a lot of young people camping on the site that were associated with the Feria so we had a choice to stay or move on. The site was quite nice, not too big, and felt very welcoming so we decided to stay for the one night only.

We wandered around the shops, Sharon bought some clothes, and we had a pretty good beer overlooking the bridge over the river. Afterwards we enjoyed the last of the day’s sun by the van before heading off to see the fair after our evening meal. The fair lacked the numbers to make it lively but we enjoyed a glass of Rose wine and watched the local Sala Club dancing on the front of the Cathedral St Jacques in the town centre.

The bull fighting was not like the Spanish type, here the bull is not killed. We could watch the events in the ring on a large screen TV set up to be viewed on the camp site. We saw the Matador enticing the bull to charge him but the bull was at a clear disadvantage as it had a rope tied to one horn and was not able to turn to get nearer the Matador as he jumped to one side to avoid the horns. Still that will be the nearest we shall ever get to watching such events and at least this type appeared to be a family orientated form of entertainment with many children present and a brass band playing in the stalls.

Once again we keep encountering the Camino de Santiago on our travels and this Cathedral was dedicated to St John and highly decorated inside with paintings on the walls and ceiling. The Pilgrims have a special room inside to check in and chat on their journey and I assume this is where they would get their Camino passport stamped in readiness for their arrival at Santiago de Compostella. One German Pilgrim I spoke to during the day said she keeps walking parts of the Camion each year and eventually she will have completed it all.

That night it was not as noisy as we had expected but I guess the big day was yet to come so we decided to head off north.

Regards, Roy