Cauterets via the amazing Col de Aubisque

The drive out of Cauterets took us down, down and down to the valley floor and then towards Bun, a small little hamlet in among a number of quaint villages in the valley. This is where a few years ago, Nana, Pops and Andrew had spent a week in a small house they'd rented. I'm certain I had seen the cream colored building on the side of the hill. The large white rock face of one of the mountains near the Col de Solour stood gleaming in the setting sun. The Col is not that long by Tourmelet standards but it certainly is one of the prettiest. The mountains on these Cols look very different to what we'd seen before and the road from Solour to Aubisque was like none other too. Here there was a scary vertical drop to our right of possible a thousand feet or more as the road cut into the vertical drop above us. At times we were taken through tunnels. It was after just having been through one of these tunnels that I heard a loud thud to my left and a flash
of silver went by. We were all rather shaken by a minibus that had overtaken us on this narrow road and his wing morrow had caught ours as he sped past. How Andrew held his nerve I don't know, but he didn't flinch, even with the incredible drop to the right on his side of the vehicle. Shortly after this we past yet another French farmer dressed in traditional Berea and sporting a large handlebar mustache. They seem to be very common among the farmers. It looked like a family affair as his wife stood at the door of a little make shift stall selling home made cheese and his young son was bringing in the sheep. He looked on and could just manage a raised hand as we greeted him as we passed. It was the end of the day so, granted, many tourists had passed before us and he must have been tired. We'd hoped to camp ontop of the Most impressive col de Aubisque, but the wind was biting,Mao we won't down the other side just passed the ski resort of Gaurets. We found a nice grassy layby that even had a picnic table and set up camp. It was fascinating tom watch the cloud roll up from the valley below and at the same time to had a beautiful rainbow stretch over the mighty chunks of limestone that make up the mountains in this region of the Pyrenees. At 7am the following morning, andrew, Gus and I hopped on our bikes for a ride to the top of the Col. It was certainly as impressive as anything we'd done before and the summit was very pleasant too. Large, lazy horses stood around the three oversized bikes, one yellow, another green and the third a polka dot white and red, representing the colour jerseys worn by the three different category winners in the tour de France. There's a lovely, simple, little hotel at the top, what a place to stay. The ride down was exhilarating. Gus and I carried on all the way down to the town of Larun, nestling in a bowl of mountains, passing quaint little villages all the way down. Just before we got to the bottom, on one of the many hairpin bends, I stopped to take a video shot of Gus with the town in the background. It looked so tranquil! The meeting point with the car was a little patisserie in the town and the prize, ‘pain au chocolate'. Yum.

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