Pau is the ancient capital of the Béarn region (where Béarnaise sauce comes from.) Its most famous son is Henri IV who was raised a Protestant, but converted to Catholicism in order to ascend the throne of France. He cooled down the wars of religion for quite a while by establishing religious tolerance with the Edict of Nantes.

Our day in Pau was remarkable for two things: it was raining heavily, and it was the day before a grand prix race. The rain kept us from seeing the superb view of the Pyrenees for which Pau is famous, and the race kept us from getting another night in a hotel so that we could stick around and see the view the following day.

 We checked out a number of restaurants in the old town and decided that "Le Saint Jacques" had an interesting menu for a reasonable price. The owner was glad to see us since the rain had been keeping all the tourists away. We were their only customers right then. The waitress was especially glad to see us since she was an Australian attending the University of Pau and her French was still a little shaky.

After we had ordered, we chatted with the co-owner, Madame Brunel, (she ran the dining room while her husband cooked), and mentioned that we were going to have to leave Pau the next day because all of the hotel rooms were reserved by people coming for the Grand Prix. She offered to go look on the Minitel (France's online telephone book) and see if she could find anything. As we were finishing the main course she came back with directions to a chambre d'hôte (bed and breakfast) in Boeil-Bezing, halfway between Pau and Lourdes. This was a turning point in our experience.