24 Heures a Bilbao

Quelque photos. J'ajouterais une parole plus tard (peut-etre)

View from Port Plaisance

Took my new bicycle for a test spin yesterday evening just before sunset.  I chanced upon what has to be one of the most beautiful panoramas of Bidasoa, taken from Port Plaisance.  It captures the three mountains that define and frame this watershed.  One can nearly always see one of them no matter where you are, but I'd never seen all three together in the same frame.

From top to bottom:

La Rhune (the highest of the three) with a full moon rising to the left (sadly not visible in the photo)

Les Trois Corrounes, the wildest and most forested, with a mantle of cloud

Jaizkibel, the most westerly peak of the Pyrenees, with Hondarribia catching the evening sun.  There was a drumming festival on the  Spanish side so the whole valley was reverberating with drum sounds, like Carnaval was taking place.   

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

The Eden Project

The Eden Project: one of the great green success stories of the Twenty First Century.   These guys bought up an abandoned and derelict china clay pit and have transformed it into a wonderland of bio-diversity in just 15 years - a project that cost 141 million pounds to establish. 

It claims to have the two largest 'greenhouses' in the world (the domes you see in the background) and the largest 'captive' rain forest in the world.  In fifteen years it has become Cornwall's biggest tourist attraction - and at a guess is probably the largest private sector employer in the county.   It's layouts are very well designed - and have a more ethno-botanic approach than most gardens.  For example in the rain forest biome they have examples of a Malaysian home garden, explain the significance of cashew, cocoa, sugar and banana production.  Similarly the Mediterranean biome explains the cultural and economic importance of different crops.  They deserve full marks for combining a 'family day out' with a strong green message that people can take home with them, for the quality and provenance of their food, for using recyclable disposable plates, cups and cutlery and many other attempts to exemplify sustainable practices.  It was well worth a visit - and I (who do a lot of work in these fields) learnt a lot from it. Yet I still felt uncomfortable with the sheer size of it.   Perhaps mass tourism just isn't for me. 

Name that reptile

Out walking in the Ardennes last weekend - one of our number spotted this bright yellow and black creature basking on the tamac road.  Does anyone know what it is? And is it native or an escapee?   It looks like it belongs in a tropical rain forest

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.