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Published: July 29th 2009
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Cows eye view of the Pyrenees
Check out the bell around her neck. Love it! Before:
After our French Centre Parcs experience we headed off on our most boring drive yet. Down the coast to San Sebastian in Spain. We travelled on the incredibly dull motorway most of the way. By mid morning the temperature was well into the thirties again. By the afternoon we crossed over into Spain and found our way into San Sebastian.
We quickly learnt two important things.
1. San Sebastian is a very sexy city. Full of sexy young things in nice clothes, wandering about the city centre and parading on the beach. The streets are full of sexy cars. Lots of them.
2. San Sebastian is not a good place to come in a big blue transit van appropriately named ‘Brian-not-sexy-but-good’
Unfortunately we had to follow a detour that took us right through the city centre to reach a campground on the other side. The streets were very narrow and packed to bursting point. To say we looked a bit out of place in Brian is a bit of an understatement!
By evening we met up with our friends Noogs and Mule and everything was alright until it started absolutely pouring. Their little tent was under our awing, which was a good thing until the awing completely filled with water and looked in danger of collapse. Poor Noogs could have been drowned on dry land unless the boys managed to fix it at 3am!
The next day we checked out of our overpriced campground, drove out to the harbour and watched massive waves crash in on the boardwalk before meeting up with another friend Ham. The five of us loaded up into Brian, waved goodbye to San Sebastian and headed off in the pouring rain to the Pyrenees.
Let the Pyrenees begin Our arrival into the Pyrenees was greeted with mist and rain. To say we were a little disappointed is an understatement. This is the part of the trip I had been looking forward to the most and all we could see was the base of the mountains through the mist! We had booked into a ski apartment in
Luz-St-Sauver for the next few nights as camping with five was going to be quite difficult. That evening we had a dip in the pool, sat in the sauna and said collective prayers to the weather god for
clear skies.
We must have done something right, for our prayers were answered and we were greeted with the most beautiful blue sky the next morning! Without wasting a moment we were off to Gavarnie to start the walk towards
Cirque Gavarnie. Well I could spend a whole blog raving on about this beautiful place but I don’t really think my descriptions could do it any justice. It is without doubt up in the top five most stunning places I have ever visited. The deep blue skies, over 400 metres of water crashing down into a natural amphitheatre in the mountains. It was fantastic and certainly deserving of its place in ‘1001 Natural Wonders You Must See Before You Die’. We could easily have spent a week just in this area it was that good.
After our great day out in the fresh air we headed back to the village and tucked into a great home cooked dinner and drank through far too many bottles of wine to celebrate Mule’s 30th birthday. The next day saw a few sore heads in the apartment as we dropped off Ham in Lourdes and headed along the Pyrenees through
more stunning scenery. And yes, we finally managed to find cows wearing bells. Check out the photos - we had to get pretty close to get those!
We decided to stop driving when we felt tired and ended up in the pretty little village of
Bagneres-de-Luchon. We found a campsite out of town and checked in for two days. This gave the girls a chance to lie by the pool while the boys played Frisbee.
Well what to do in Luchon? I read about some mountain biking trails starting at the top of the local mountain
Superbagneres and mentioned it to the others. oh yes, what a great idea…
Those of you who know me, know that I am a bit of a numpty on two wheels. My recent fall from a complete stand still in Richmond Park is testament to my cycling ability. I really do like riding my bike, its just going up hills (okay, and going down them) that I have trouble with. Oh yeah, and stopping and starting…
We took cable car to the top of the mountain where we were to start the cycle. After finding the start point, it quickly
became apparent that we needed to go down the ‘intermediate’ section before getting to the ‘family’ section. Needless to say, the track was a bit beyond me with rocks, turns and bumps.
Obviously I did what every 28 year old would do. I pouted, I sulked, I swore and yes, shame of all shame, I had to get off and push my bike. All the while, everyone else was loving it. Noogs was a streak of blue in the distance! I am in awe!
After awhile we managed to make it to the family section in one piece. From here the boys shot off down the advanced slope and the girls set off at a sedate pace down the baby slopes. It was all a bit eventful with the boys suffering a few nasty spills and two burst types, the girls getting confused with the trail markings and having to cycle back to the starting point before starting all over again and of course the boys starting to feel a bit guilty about leaving their girlfriends alone on the mountain without water, a first aid kit or mobile phones. They didn’t realise any of this until the adrenalin
from their cycle wore off and they started wondering where we were! Thanks boys!
After our couple of days in Luchon, we set off again in trusty old ‘Brian-not-sexy-but-good’ and waved goodbye to the lovely Pyrenees.
I am having trouble uploading photos from this slightly dodgy Wifi connection so will try to get them up on the next stop.
Till then!
x
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