The Pyrenees 2010: Day 11

Refugio Venasque – Luchon

We woke up at 7 am, packed our stuff and sat down outside the refuge, bought a coffee and ate our own breakfast, bread and cheese.

Early morning view from the tent

We really enjoyed this wonderful place and this beautiful morning. But we had to keep moving. We started walking down the valley.

It was a little steep and we walked in zig zag.

The zig zag track down the valley.

After about 1,5 h we came down to a road and a parking lot.

Looking back

Our plan was to hitchhike from here, but there were no cars going in our direction. We walked on a asphalt road for about an hour before we met a family outside their house that offered us a lift, we squeezed us into the backseat together with the two teenage daughters and drove some more km to Luchon.

We came to Luchon just some minutes after the Tour de France bikers left the place. It was like arriving to a party that was over.

After the Tour de France party

We found a hotel, ate lunch at a café by the square and had a glass of Sangria. We walked around in the village for hours, we were a little bored. It’s hard to come to a big village after days up in the mountains.  We had dinner at the hotel restaurant. After dinner we visited the church, inside there were three sporty dressed men warming up for the concert later in the evening. They sang nice and we’d listen for a while before we went back to our hotel room, we did some reading before we fell asleep.