A New Adventure in France

We’d been looking out for a weather window to see if we could get a few days closer to the French Pyrénées with dry weather suitable to get out on the motorbike. The weather changes constantly in that area and there was no guarantee of wall to wall sunshine but we decided to give it a go. Our first base was a simple and very quiet site at Agos Vidalos – we may have been the only people there on our first night. We woke up to low cloud but that was set to clear so we set out first towards Cauterets and the Pont d’Espagne. Apparently it’s an old stone bridge spanning a river near its source high in the Pyrénées and with good walks nearby. We’ll have to take the guide book’s word for that because, as we climbed higher alongside dramatic waterfalls, the cloud got thicker and, by the time we reached the top, we couldn’t see beyond the part of the car park we stopped in. Joe thought it was a great road with extremely tight hairpin bends one after the other that showed up like a frenzied doodle on his sat nav screen.

We took the same route back down beneath the cloud and carried on to another road that took us over the Col du Soulor. By this time the sun was burning off the cloud and the wonderful vistas opened up in front of us. At the top at 1474 metres we had a fabulous panorama for lunch, shared with horses and some very inquisitive donkeys who gave all new arrivals a close inspection, i.e. heads in the car boots, searching for something to eat. Joe was not impressed with their proximity to his bike as one started to nudge the bike’s paniers.

The route down and back to camp took us through the small village of Lestelle-Betharram and Lourdes. Lestelle-Betharram found fame as a sanctuary and a place where a number of miracles have taken place. It is also notable for its baroque chapel. Lourdes is obviously very well known and of huge importance to the many pilgrims who visit there. Surprisingly, the town centre seemed very calm and unspoilt, I.e not tacky, although we really didn’t spend any time there to get a proper feel for it.

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As one of the major roads into the mountains just south of us was closed for maintenance, we moved on to another base just outside another spa town, Bagnères de Bigorre. The town has a huge thermal baths building for ‘taking the waters’ but is otherwise pretty quiet. We awoke to bright sunshine and headed out on the motorbike again towards the iconic Pic du Midi and the Col du Tourmalet, at 2115m one of the highest road mountain passes in the French Pyrénées. These roads are famous for being used for the ‘col’ sections of the Tour de France, and the road surface is painted with encouragements and the names of past riders. As well as more touring motorbikes than we’ve seen in all the time we’ve been here, there were also cyclists stopping to take photos at signs marking the height and distance, not to mention the occasional cow and goat herd on the road itself. There is a cable car that you can take up to Pic du Midi but at 45 euros each you really need to spend a good chunk of time up there and we wanted to cover some more ground, so we admired this wonderful peak from a distance at the top of the pass, together with some grazing llamas.

From here we followed the road to another mountain pass, Col d’Aspin at 1489m and another Tour de France route and we stopped at the top to admire the 360 degree panorama, this time with grazing cows. Photos really do not do any justice to the views.

The mountain peaks were bare of any snow at this point, but two days later after a night of overnight rain at our next stop, we saw the higher mountains were now covered with snow. The seasons really are changing.