Col de Tourmalet and Cirque de Gavarnie

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08 October 2011

We watched France beat England in the Rugby world cup and thereby get revenge for the English victory 4 years ago which we saw at Rocamadour in the Auvergne.

Then we tackled the Col de Tourmalet (in the van not on the bikes), at 2115m the highest in the Pyrenees and the site of many Tour de France epics. There are signs every kilometre telling cyclists the height they have reached and how far they have to go to the summit. I don’t know if this is a help or not. From the summit the exposed roads drops steeply to the ski resort of Barèges and then to the spa town Luz-St-Sauveur.

From there we drove south up the valley to the village of Gavarnie which is spectacularly situated below the 1500m high Cirque of the same name which is surrounded by 3000m high peaks. The Cirque has a waterfall, the Grande Cascade, which at 423m is the highest in Europe. We did the 2 hour walk into the magnificent cirque and to the base of the waterfall which necessitated negotiating a steep and loose path just below it.

We were able to spend the night at a car park so once again were surrounded with great views as darkness fell.

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