It begins with a ham sandwich, a Jambon de Bayonne and Emmental panini at a shitty little lunch counter at the local supermarche just before the autoroute.  This is not how all our road trips start, but this one started late. We aren’t morning people. I think we’re just grabbing and going but this is France. You don’t eat in the car. Even in the McDonalds drive-thrus you order, you park, they bring it to your car (because even fast food takes long), you drive it to a place and leave the car to eat. So we ate at a little table at the supermarche. And I had a pressed ham and cheese sandwich an entire baguette long.

We drive on the national autoroute (it’s a four lane highway with mostly trucks and other people who drive too fast) westward to the mountains and Basque country…until Kate can’t stand driving fast anymore. We turn on to the local roads. We can see the Pyrenees in the distance but our first stop is Salies-de-Bearn.