Rhapsodic Walks on Historic Footpaths in France

FRANCE ON FOOT by Bruce LeFavour (Attis Press, $24.95, paper).

Any book that earns cover blurbs from gonzo illustrator Ralph Steadman and Chez Panisse chef Alice Waters must have something going for it. This large-format volume offers color photos, good maps, excellent directions and fine writing on France’s 110,000 miles of off-road footpaths, les sentiers de grande randonnee.

Some trails are left over from Roman times. Others were carved through fields and woods by medieval farmers, herdsmen and pilgrims. The system was made official in 1947, and now it’s one of the nation’s best-kept secrets.

The book offers fine chapters on lodging, equipment and the like. But the highlight is LeFavour’s diary-like “Day on the Trail,” which captures beautifully the experience of walking through flowering fields (and people’s backyards) and encounters with hikers and villagers.

The author is a chef by trade--his latest venture being Rose et LeFavour in the Napa Valley--and his rhapsodic riffs on the joys of good wine and food could inspire the most bloated of couch potatoes to get trekking.

The debilitating question becomes where to hike: Normandy? Champagne? The Loire? LeFavour does his best to walk you through the array of temptations.

A TRAVEL GUIDE TO BASQUE AMERICA--Families, Feasts and Festivals by Nancy Zubiri (University of Nevada Press, $18.95, paper).

Consciousness of the Basques probably came to more than a few Angelenos at Erick Schat’s Bakery in Bishop. So what if none of the bakery’s owners over the years has been Basque? The recipe for Schat’s sheepherder’s bread was passed on by Basque herdsmen who came through at the turn of the century, and ever since, Mammoth-bound tourists have been eating the stuff and imagining how it must have tasted emerging from herdsmen’s outdoor ovens.

The Basques have Europe’s oldest surviving culture, Zubiri writes. They have lived in a part of the Pyrenees Mountains at least since the time of Jesus, and they may, in fact, descend from the area’s Stone Age inhabitants.

Only 50,000 Americans identified themselves as Basque in the 1990 census, and well over a third of those were in the West. This thoroughly researched and well-written book will help travelers appreciate the pockets of Basque culture they might stumble upon in, say, Winnemucca, Nev., and it will guide Basques to their own heritage: the sheepherder monument in Reno, Elko’s annual festival, Basque clubs. The author includes plenty of restaurant tips and a smattering of recipes.

Quick trips

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN TRAVEL GUIDE by Wayne C. Robinson (Hunter Publishing, $15.95, paper).

Seventeen U.S. cities, Nova Scotia and Ontario are included in this comprehensive list of sites, museums and universities that reflect African American culture and the establishments where it thrives.

THE FIELD GUIDE TO ELVIS SHRINES by Bill Yenne (Renaissance Books, $15.95, paper).

Anyone can find Graceland. But the King himself might overlook such sites as Sierra Sid’s Auto Truck Plaza in Sparks, Nev., where Sid Doan has created what Yenne calls “one of the most important Elvis museums in the West.”

Books to Go appears the second and fourth Sunday of the month.