Pyrenees 2010

The Pyrenees 2010: Day 14

Day 14: Germ – Luz

Our clothes had dried during the night but the boots were still a bit wet. Outside it was still gray but it was not raining. Our plan was to go back to Cauterets, from where we’d started. We had been thinking of the the nice Scarpa shoes we had seen in the store the morning we started our walk. We had to many stages to do and to little time to make it all the way to Cauterets – we decided to hitchhike one etap, to Luz. It seemed like a good day for that since it was foggy.

 

We ate some breakfast in the restaurant and packed our things. We took a little tour in the small sweet village. Bought some nice cheese from a farmer. We like cheese and had missed that in Spain as we rarely came by farmers who made and sold cheese there.

We started to walk down to a little bigger town, Laudenville. We bought some more food. We started to hitchhike and got lift quite quickly by a couple. She could speak a little English and they where really nice. The took us to Arreau, a small town.

 

It turned out to be almost impossible to get a hike from here. Even though many cars (and bikes) past us on their way up to Col d´Aspin and Col du Tourmalet.

Finaly after changing a spot we got a lift with three pensioners. They took us to Col d´Aspin. Up there it started to get quite foggy so we didn’t see so much of the view. We soon got lift to Ste-Marie de Campan.

 

It was a small sweet village with a lot of bikers on their way to Col du Tourmalet, which is the highest point in the Tour the France. This day was the day after the tournament had passed the Col so you can imagine all the people who wanted to do the same.

 

We got lift by a really nice Dutch girl. She was a biker but had a resting day so she was following her biking boyfriend and dad with the car. She offered us a ride all the way to Luz but we had to accept that she would stop now and then to feed the two bikers with snacks and drinks.  That was fine with us. I gave us insight in the biker community.

 

The fog continued so we didn’t see much of the view at the top. A strange feeling.

 

A window at a house in Luz

In Luz we found a Gite and we ate some Paella at a Pizzeria. It was some kind of festival in the town with a lot of market stall and people walking around. We took a glass of wine at the Gite before we went to bed.

 

The Pyrenees 2010: Day 15

Luz – Cauterets

We woke up 6.30 wanting to get an early start. We had just one more stage before reaching Cauterets, our last destination. It felt a bit sad. But it felt good to close the circle. Our idea was  to get back to the nice hiking store in Cauterets and try out the shoes we still couldn’t forget.

Unfortunately we got delayed because we didn’t find our way out of the village, a supposed short cut was a dead end and we had to turn back.

We past some nice villages. Both of them had Gites that would probably be nicer to stay at than in Luz, not that it was bad but staying in a smaller village higher up in the mountains is hard to beat.

We stopped at a café for a ice-cream and rested shortly to get a picture of our back backs together with the matching chairs.

 

Our backpacks taking a rest at a camping

 

 

The first part of the trail was really nice. The narrow old paths, surrounded by threes, like tunnels, reminded us of the year before hiking here in the Pyrenees. (you will soon be able to read more at this site about that hike). This special paths are quite typical for some parts of the Pyrenees.

 

After a while we came out of the ”tunnel” and the landscape was more open and soft shaped.

 

We came up to a ski resort, apart from the ski lift and the parking place, it was a nice place.

 

We continued upwards and we had the feeling, even though it was hard, we never wanted the climb to end as this was our last climb of this trip.

 

When we almost had reached the top it started to get foggy, we lost the nice view and we where not able to see anything from the top.

 

Standing at the last top of this trip

The first part of the down climb was really nice with a wide zig-zag trail. But after a while we came in to a rather boring wood and in the end we had to follow a smaller road. We speeded up as our plan was to make it to Cauterets before the stores closed.

 

Cauterets from above

We made it in time to the shop, we were both very happy and soon also happy owner of some really nice, cool shoes and good walking shoos when walking in the city.

 

Yrr’s (green) and Anna’s (turquoise) Scarpa shoes

We found a nice gite that had a big kitchen we could use. We put almost all the vegetables we had left to soak and went out to buy some wine and pasta. We made a super nice dinner. We sat outside in the garden for a while.  Before we went to bed we talked to our room mates, two French guys that were doing the whole GR10 .

 

The Pyrenees 2010: Day 16

Cauterets- Pau

We had a bus to catch at 7.20 am. The village was full of people dressed in running cloths about to do the Pyrenee Marathon.

 

Anna and the marathon runners

We took the bus to Lords and a train from there to Pau. We spent the day in Pau walking around and resting in different parks. It happen to be Sunday and everything was closed.

 

The palace of Henry IV in Pau

Our friends (that we were about to visit) Christine and Ryan were out of town but they came back early in the evening and picked us up. We had a wonderful dinner together in their back yard. What a lovely end of a great adventure!

 

Delicious dinner with lovely friends in Pau.

We slept in the guest room, and our friends took us to the station the next morning. We took the train to Toulouse and from their the airplane… home sweet home…

 

GR10 and GR11 report, 2010

During two weeks in July in 2010 we where hiking in the Pyrenees for the second time. This time we where walking in both Spain and in France. We followed mainly GR10 and GR11 but we also walked a bit on the HRP.

You can read more about the hike here