The Pyrenees with Michael Portillo
TRAVELOGUE 9PM, CHANNEL 5
On the third leg of his Pyrenees journey, Michael is in the Ariège region, one of the most unspoiled parts of France. The landscape is breathtaking, but the mist, rain and mud can make progress difficult, so it’s just as well that Michael doesn’t meet one of the brown bears said to be in the area. The local humans, though, are very welcoming, including a couple from Luxembourg who have bought a remote pig farm, and some self-sufficient nuns at an abbey. The latter give us a scene worthy of any travelogue: Michael, enormous rucksack still on his back, chats to a nun in French about faith while he feeds the abbey’s cows. ★★★★ JP