Randonne

A short couple of hours stroll from the chapel at Guadalupe to Jaizkibel (543m) the last peak before the Pyrenees tumbles into the Atlantic.  The Bay of Figs and the Bay of Biscay on my right hand side,  La Rhune and the Three Crowns on the right:  Ohri, the western-most 2000m peak visible for just a few minutes before arriving at the look-out point at Jaizkibel.  A short but very enjoyable walk.

The view from Guadalupe across the Bidasoa towards La Rhune, 

possibly the best 'Mirador' on the Bidasoa.

The Three Crowns from Jaizkibel

Serendipity in the Bibliotheque

One of the books that I found at the Planete Ecole stall yesterday was just what I was looking for: an illustrated history of the Tour de France.  It was true serendipity since a) the tour was in the Pyrenees that very day and b). I was just rewriting a section of my book about the Pyrenees that involved me doing some fact checking about the very first tours to pass through the Pyrenees.  They were fascinating times: the guy charged with reconnoitring  the route spent a night lost on  the Col de Tournalet (the highest paved pass on the French side of the mountains) in freezing conditions having walked across the pass as the car he hired couldn't cross because of the depth of the snow.  He sent a telegram back to L'Auto in Paris saying 'the route is fine.'   Three years later a certain Eugene Christophe who was running just behind the leader, had his bike almost totalled when it was run over by a car.  At that time there were no spare bikes and riders were not allowed to call on outside mechanical help so he carried his bike 14km down the mountain to the nearest village and welded the frame back together himself in the local forge, while officials watched on to make sure the smithy didn't help him.   He wasn't able to gain back the time he lost, but he earnt himself a place in the 'people's history book' . 

But this photo made me smile: Maurice Garin, winner of the first tour de France in 1902. Check that ciggie hanging out of the corner of his mouth! 

Journey over

My trip across the Pyrenees is over!  Now time to sit down fo six weeks and write up and organise my extensive travel notes and put roots down in one place after weeks in and out of camp sites, hotels, friends houses and chambres d'hotes.  A welcome change

A transcendental walk

 Had a transcendental walk yesterday along a 15 km ridge at between 750 and 1100m, following the French / Spanish border north - south.    There was a sheer drop of 300 m cliffs on one side for the last 4 km!  The light was fantastic: I saw vultures, kites and a golden eagle - plus an egret and kingfisher in the streams at the start of the day.  I'm starting to get the birding thing, keeping my field glasses close to hand all the time.  Looking back I could see a line of mountain peaks stretching to the east, and to the west the Atlantic for the first time - reminding me that my journey's nearly over.  The descent - of 750 m in less than 4 km - was brutal and i was glad to be back in the valley after 7 hours on the tops.  

A week in Pamplona

After a month in tiny secluded mountain villages with one shop and two bars (I exaggerate but only slightly) I decide I need a change of energy.  Pamplona - some say the cultural and culinary capital of the Basque Country. It worked for Ernest Hemingway why can't it work for me?

I've certainly eaten well here, got a lot of writing done too, inspired by a lovely view. Back to the mountains tomorrow. At least the weather forecast is good.

Two weeks in the Seule valley

Some of these photos were already posted on Facebook - it was a lovely lazy two weeks!

wo weeks

Val de Seule: 'The Tibet of the Basque Country'

I planned to stay in Val de Seule for three to four days, explore it a bit and wait for my mail from Brussels to catch up with me. That was a week ago. I’ve just extended my chalet booking for another week, at as my hosts say ‘hunter’s rate’.  I’m not sure if being an honorary hunter is something I’ve ever aspired to, but I sure do like being here.  In the first week here I did all the tourist things, two of the three magnificent limestone gorges in the valley and the Cave de Verna, the largest cave in the world open to the public – it could swallow up nine Notre Dames de Paris with space left over.  It was awe inspiring. 

I’ve also visited Pau - colonized by the English since the 1830s for its favourable climate and with stunning views of the Pyrenees,  Navarentz –voted France’s most beautiful village in 2014, L’hôpital Saint Blaise – an 11^th Century church and UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site and the magnificent Salle de Belatous, a local village museum that blew me away with its stories of traditional farming knowledge,  the valley’s unique role in caving history (more about that later, perhaps) and the earthquake that destroyed 80% of the houses in the village in 1967 ( I also met an old farmer who lived through that episode).

And I have discovered that I have only just scratched the surface. There are other views and attractions that don’t even make the guide books (more about that later too perhaps). But the reason I’ve decided to stay another week is because the people here (from locals to tourists) are so cool.  Every day I have lovely, meaningful and life enhancing conversations.   On the tourist front I seem to have fallen into some kind of ‘active pensioners’ with camping vans’ sub-culture, which I feel actually feel very comfortable with.  Most of them, it must be said, are Brits. One couple I met have been coming here for eighteen years and after one conversation about bird migrations they knocked on my chalet door to let me know that there was a group of 1500 or so migrating cranes flying overhead. Last night I met a politically tuned in Scottish musician who (claimed he) has played with Altan, Sharon Shannon and so many of the Gaelic folkies I listen to. We talked about Munroes, refendera, political ignorance and later swapped our limited knowledge about constellations in the crystal starry night that gave birth to the second frosty morning here.   

But I’m also having rewarding contacts with locals.  It feels that my limited pre-trip research is paying off dividends, my scant knowledge of the area is paying off dividends, every little bit of local knowledge I share with a villager is rewarded by five times more information. The owner of my camp site keeps plying me with ancient tomes – with black and white photos - about the history and geography of this valley.  I am slow to assimilate so much text in French.  I did picked up a 1950s text about the Basque country before leaving Brussels – replete with black and white photos and she was so delighted to look at – it came back the next  day -  replete with 20 bookmarks of the local sights, and she and her partner sat down over coffee with me and discussed with each other the traditions and chronology of the photos:

‘This was when farmers used bulls to drag the carts, before the days of horses’;

‘This must have been the 1950s when they were putting in the first metal pylons. Were there wooden pylons then or was that the first time we had electricity?’ 

I feel so honoured to be party to these conversations, so much more meaningful than the standard youth hostel chat of ‘where you from, where you been, where you going?’  I feel I just might have tapped into what Alain de Botton calls ‘The Art of Travelling’ and I’ve done so by sitting still for a few days. 

The photos I posted earlier on Facebook but  don't know how to link back to them 

The biggest cave in the world

I was in the biggest(accessible to the public) cave in the world  today, 250 metres in diameter and almost 200 metres high.  It covers a floor space of 5 hectares and you could fit nine Notre Dames into its space (sorry it's a French cave, so the comparisons are French).  I didn't even try taking any photos. A tablet phone is just not up to the magnificence of this place.   But to give an impression of just how huge it is  here's a photo of a full size hot air balloon being flown within it!  (There is also a video here but the first ten minutes of it are about the logistics of getting the stuff up the mountain (before there was a road to the entrance) and into the cave.

The system was discovered in 1950 and the large cavern in 1953.  The whole system has still not been completely explored and has its own ecosystem, half a dozen blind insect species, several of whom are endemic to this cave system. Big wow factor!

En passant, days 17-21; Biescas - Aramatis via Col de Somport

Sabinanigo - Canfranc - Col du Somport (1650m) - Vallee d'Aspe - Val de Baloutous - Aramits and old friends (from thirty years ago)- Blagnac (Toulouse's airport) - home.

Spring's coming.

I've compressed the last four days ' voyage into one blog as there was some slippage in my (not quite) daily blogging routine.

Started the last leg of my voyage by visiting the hugely impressive Museo Angel Oresanz et Arts du Serrablo.   They have collected hundreds of artefacts from the depopulated surrounding area to build a display of how peasants used to live, their cheese, wine and bread-making tools, their agricultural implements, bells for the livestock, vernacular architecture, etc.  It makes for a fascinating visit.  The forge and the hay cart were particularly striking

Outside the museum dry stone walling takes on a completely different meaning:

Going up into the mountains I stop at Canfranc, the world's second longest railway platform - sadly abandoned now - though moves are afoot to restore it.  

Though I think they have their sense of direction slightly mixed up

There is a tunnel under the Col du Somport now - to allow year round transit through this pass. Its the longest (8km), newest and was the most controversial road tunnel in the Pyrenees. The legal (and extra legal) challenges lasted some 20+ years as the route would increase traffic flows - particularly HGVs through the Val d'Aspe, one of the last refuges of the French Brown Bear.   But the top road remains open and used and has some of the best views from any pass in this chain.

This HGV clipped a rock on a twist in the road in the 'Gorge of Bridge of Hell' and got a flat tire. Not the sort of thing you can fix alone.   That driver probably had a very long wait until some suitably heavy machinery could be mobilised. 

But he did share his misfortune with some illustrious forebears. Just above sits the the Fort de Portelet which used to be prison. Reluctant guests in the past include the Seventh Lord Elgin (on his travels back from the Middle East), Leon Blum (head of the Popular Front government who were in power when the Nazis invaded France in 1940)  and Philippe Pétain (the head of the Vichy Government who was imprisoned here for a while by the French for treason after the Second World War).  That's some history.

I stayed just down the road in a 13th Century Chateau in the pretty hillside village of Cette-Eygun

I accidentally saved the best bit if this trip until last. La Cirque de Lescun. Just off the Val d'Aspe. If Gavarnie is concave and tunnel like, closing in on the visitor, this is the just the opposite, convex and opening up new vistas around every turn.

A few kilometres down the valley the transhumance is beginning

And I cross my final pass for this trip, the le Col de Labays (1350m), still carrying snow

I drop down the valley to catch up with some friends from thirty years ago. Last time I was here this house and barn were almost derelict - just liveable in. Now its a picture-postcard pretty dwelling.

Francis demonstrates the use of an ergonomic garden tool. A double handed fork. Its great - you don't have bend and twist your back to dig over the soil.

Two hours later the patch is clean and planted up with onions. 'Come back in September and help us eat them'

And, finally helping Mark and Mirielle muck out and feed their sheep and goats

Their neighbour comes by to borrow one of those ergonomic forks. I'm heading back to Toulouse, but with an invitation to join Mark, his 165 sheep, 75 goats, 8 dogs and 2 donkeys in the high mountains for a few days in September, when he will be doing his five month summer stint as a upland shepherd. An offer not to miss.