The Midi-Pyrenees, southern France, is my vacation spot this summer for three weeks and I can just make out the mountains from my loft in an 18th century farm house in the village of Lahitte.
There was not a cloud in the sky, as I disembarked at Pau Airport, where the English had built Europe’s first golf course. This was in stark contrast to London where hail storms had pummelled the city, showers continuously delayed Wimbledon and the low temperatures kept me sweater clad, hiding my bronze Egyptian tan.
My village of Lahitte held their annual fete over the weekend. Festivals, big and small, are common in Europe over the summer months. Just over them there hills, the Pyrenees Mountains, throngs of Basque and tourists are preparing for the running of the bulls at Pamplona.
I didn’t come here for barrels of Spanish red wine or an attempt at a reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway’s youth. Not to mention the chance of a close encounter with bulls horns and stampeding hoofs. I came for the grass, the shade of an oak tree and the rush of a mountain stream.
The Lahitte fiesta was more my speed anyway. A local brass band trumpeted bolero style tunes, mountains of mussels oozed with garlic and the Pernod flowed, lubricating the sunset. The occasional piece of farm machinery lumbered home from the fields and children clambered over the climbing gyms in the village park.
Late into the night the traditional trumpets of the village orchestra began to slur a little and the contemporary beats of a DJ kept the villages youth, mums and dads, grandparents and two stray tourists groovin’ till the wee hours.
Approximately an hour’s drive west is the Atlantic coastal resort of Biarritz, where a century ago England’s Queen Victoria would holiday. This south-west corner of France was the countries most popular destination, with its unique Basque culture, Europe’s most spectacular mountain range and the finest cuisine du terroir – hearty dishes of wild game, such as duck, rabbit and seafood from the Bay of Biscay.
South of my rustic farmhouse which is covered in snow during the winter months is Christianity’s most famous site of pilgrimage, Lourdes. It was at this gateway to the Pyrenees that a 14 year girl, Bernadette Soubirous, saw the Virgin Mary in 1858 and revealed the location of a fresh water spring inside a cave. It is these waters, which have gained a reputation for healing the sick and curing aliments such as blindness. Bernadette was made a Saint in 1933.
It was through the Pyrenees Mountains that the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate marched onto the coastal plain of Aquitaine and north towards the Frankish city of Tours in 732 AD. A date that may be Christianity’s most important – besides the resurrection of Jesus.
It was at the Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers that a full strength Arab army, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, was defeated and ended the Arab conquest of France.
Many historians see the Battle of Poitiers as a watershed that decided the fate of Europe.
“One can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had ‘Abd ar-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732, wrote William E. Morris in 1993.
History is full of what ifs.but what if the Umayyad’s where successful, what would have stopped their advance onto Paris and Rome?
Military command must be like this French keyboard, full of frustrations, many of the keys are out of position.
As I race now to meet my deadline before this Government internet café closes, I cannot believe it, a thunderstorm has moved in and it has started to rain. In Egypt, one often hears expatriates say they miss the rain and now I feel plagued by it. O for that Egyptian sun.
It is only the second day of my vacation and I hope to bring the regular Daily Star Egypt readers traditional cultural insights into the Pyrenees. Such as what happened during lunch today. I was enjoying the plate de jour, when a man beating a drum led the way for an old bus carrying the local rugby team slowly along the main street; many of the men on board were naked. Confirming that these European summer festivals do come both big and small.
