13th of August Hanneke and Jurriaan picked us up by the hotel at a quarter past nine. The bags were quickly put in the trunk and the bikes were secured with some elastic bands before we started on the road. Once we were on a highway and reached 130km/h Robert and I were after six weeks on bike suddenly under a speed shock. It felt really extremely fast to move within such a short matter of time four to five times as we were used to.
You suddenly get aware what our last week’s reality of feasible distances by bike was compared to what our mind gets used to everyday life in a world of cars. Hanneke and Jurriaan saved us three days of biking in the heat through the endless pine forests of the Landes within two hours.
We arrived in Orthez by noon and had a little walk in town to see the famous bridge with the tower. The centre of town we expected being a little bit more medieval, but it was a bit lost by a huge place in front of the town hall. Nevertheless, we had lunch together at the “Gaston” outside in the shade and were glad for any little wind or let it be just a small movement of air.
Then it was time to say goodbye and get back on our bikes. Our route followed the river of Ousse and it was again on an old railway track. Compared to the Landes with forests and fields being extremely dry here everything still looked a little bit better, but already like fall had advanced as some trees had brown leaves. Something had changed in the agricultural surroundings. What was dominated by wineries until now was replaced by Kiwi-plantations.
It seemed like the old railway track wanted to be accompanied by a tourist train on wheels at Salies-de-Béarn where tourists waved at us on our bikes. At the bridge of Castagnede we crossed the river of Gave d’Oloron and saw many families enjoying their swim in the river. We did a little detour to Auterrive where I wanted to try to meet my former colleague Anna Chavepayre who had worked also at Jean Nouvel office in Paris.
It was just by chance that we drove by because she already told me that she is very busy and will have her brother visiting from Sweden. There were three architects in the office of “collectif encore” working on a hand-in for a competition and they told me that Anna is still on a construction site. So I only could write her a little message on her desk before I wanted to leave. I was just heading out the door in this moment she came in. It was so nice to see her again after nearly 24 years.
We had something to drink and some refreshing pieces of melon and a few minutes to get us shortly updated. But I knew she was “Charette” which means in total stress for the presentation tomorrow and I didn’t want to take more of her time. Actually “Charette” is a French idiom among architects which is supposed to come from the fact that the students needed a handcart in the last second to transport their models to the school of Beaux Arts for the submission of their diploma.
We still had a few more kilometres along the river of Gave d’Oloron before Sauveterre-de-Béarne, where my tachometer finally reached 2.000km. Something to celebrate at the place where we stayed at a family run B&B which offered even dinner for its guests. The owner wanted just to prepare the tables outside as we arrived and it started to rain. A refreshing rain after these high temperatures brought a relief for us but she needed to set tables inside.
