Ken's ancestral tour through
SW France - 9 - Argèles Gazost to near Biarritz

Wednesday 2nd July 2003

A proper buffet breakfast in the morning, included in the price of €103 but the VISA machine would not work & I had to pay cash, damnit. We set off up the Col de Soulor, which got tougher as we progressed but the top was in cloud. A little way below, it was not & a grand view opened up or rather, closed, as the hills are of a different character to the West. A narrow, high-level road cut into the rock leads round, carefully indeed, to the top of the Col d'Aubisque (In English!), which was blowing a gale, to the point where the car door bashed my left jaw quite painfully. We had a coffee, partly for me to recover & met a late middle-aged German couple, who had cycled up. I was impressed & chatted to them.

The road down was steep but an easier drive. It had two surprises, both towns. The first, quite high up, as Gourette (in French), some sort of holiday town but, although skis were available for hire, it did not look as if there was any safe skiing, although the web says there is. The second, Eaux Bonnes, was a redundant spa with huge, derelict hotels & a Victorian Casino.

Laruns is the bottom of the pass, in the Ossau Valley, which we drove down to Bielle, where the Col de Marie Blanque goes off West. This is quite different from the other passes, lower at 1035m & largely wooded with a great mixture of trees & came out at the village of Escot, where there was nowhere to eat. Down North on the main road from Spain, we turned off on the D918 again & eventually had a big, very, meal for €11 each at Arette. We continued on green pre-Alpine roads to Mauleon, which was impressive with a castle overlooking the Mairie, a Chateau & other interesting buildings.

But, because of road-ups, we had to go to Saint Palais by D11. There, we sort of got lost & went up to Peyrehourade on the wrong road through Labastide Villefranche. This did not really matter & we were at our friends chateau again by 1630, where Martin made us tea & we chinwagged for about three hours. Then, we took him to a restaurant for another huge dinner. We are eating too much.