Wednesday, 1 September 2010

Allo, everyone; happy September!

Today was a lovely driving sort of day. R very relieved, as he has been walking his little legs off, and his left knee is really bothering him. (Looks like an MRI and doctor appt. as soon as we get home to get this taken care of! The rest and Aleve haven’t done the job; R thinks it’s possibly a torn meniscus like his other knee…) So…spent a quiet night; very good sleeping weather, with one of the windows open, listening to the Ariege river head downstream; nice and chilly! Up around 7 a.m. and then down to breakfast. R asked how much the room was per night, and really didn’t believe me when I said 50 Euros per…Packed up and reloaded the car and out by around 8:30 a.m.

Headed off toward Foix, and found it to be a truly lovely little city with a GREAT castle overlooking the town. Have definitely put it on our “next time” list! Wanted to make sure that we hit two of the VERY high mountain passes (called col’s) that are frequent flyers for the Tour de France, as we made our way towards Pau. Absolutely lovely drive, first to Col d’Aspin and from there to Col de Tourmelet. Driving up these passes was incredible – first, because there are NO guardrails, and the roads get progressively narrower as we headed up! To add to all the excitement of no guard rails and VERY windy roads are all the cyclists, many on professionally run tours, who are trying to ride up these very same hills! (Someone will have to explain to me WHY anyone would want to do this!) Additionally, there was free-range livestock all over the place! So, you never knew, when rounding a blind curve, if you’d have a car/camper/cyclist/cow/horse/sheep waiting for you! What fun!! We stopped at both of the passes to walk around and take pictures, and at Col de Tourmelet we split a baguette with cheese and a coke for a late lunch. Col de Tourmelet was fun, as the groups were waiting for their various members – and yelling encouragement and applauding as they made it to the top! And boy, were the riders excited to make it! I figured I could always drive the support van…Also at the top of Col de Tourmelet was the pedestrian entrance to the walking path to Pic du Midi, the French observatory. (Anne & Arthur, did you once pay a visit there?) It looked interesting, but I think you have to take a gondola or similar hanging thing to get to the site – NOT my idea of a good time, especially with the wind blowing!

From the col’s we made our way through Lourdes to Pau. (Actually had to drive through the center of Lourdes, as our navigator failed to mention the exit that would take us around town…grrr…) Once we finished that, it was a nice and easy drive into Pau. This is a big city (relatively speaking), and we went first to our hotel. The Hotel Bristol is very nice; very modern furniture and lovely tiled bathroom. Also TV that gets Eurosport so we’re watching the 5th stage of the Vuelta di Espana – and those crazy cyclists are now riding in incredible HEAT – it was something like 40 C the other day – WAY over 100! Are resting now prior to heading out for dinner and drinks a bit later! Sincerely hope we can find something nice/good within walking distance, otherwise I’ll be the DD so no alcohol…and no wine in France is really SAD!

Take care; more later!
Love,
m
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