Travelling to France from Spain

Saturday June 7th 2008

Through Spain to France

And so the six week block of breaks in Spain has come to an end. A major learning experience throughout, but the feedback we received was generally very favourable and offers a lot of promise for the future.


The courtyard at the hacienda - another sunny day

A pause while packing the land rover for the journey

The hacienda from the path up the mountain

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But our tentative planning for 2009 has suggested that the two venues per country idea is not a necessary part of what we are about and so may well be dropped. And if that is the case, then we will definitely be basing the future Spanish breaks at the "Moorish Farmhouse" rather than here at the hacienda

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The main question for the journey was whether I would have time to get to the Chateau de Rodie and then back to Toulouse for my flight. It was about 1400 km from the hacienda to the chateau and that increasingly seemed to be too challenging in the time I had available. But for the first day of the journey, I did keep an open mind on this question. This early part of the journey took me to Cordoba, then Madrid and at that point a decision had to be made.

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Nigel had mentioned that they had travelled to France across the Pyrenees through a long tunnel that came out near Lourdes. He had said this was a really great drive and I had begun to think more about this as I headed towards Madrid. And then as I looked at my map and plotted a possible route I noticed that the route close to Lourdes would also mean travelling close to la Mongie and the Col de Tourmalet, key features of recent Tour de France races. So maybe if I did abandon the plan to reach the chateau, I could go and visit these places instead. At Madrid, therefore, I turned right and headed towards Zaragoza, reaching there at around 9:30 in the evening after a day's drive of over 1,000km. Never has an Express Holiday Inn being more welcoming!

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I slept for close to 10 hours straight through and was on the road again by 8:30 the next morning, heading towards Huesca and the Pyrennees. Around 10:00, I had a quick chat to Linda, stopping with the foothills of the Pyrennees in the distance (cloud hugging the tops, but definitely some snow still there)

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Stopped for a call home - mountains topped with cloud and snow in the distance

North of Huesca towards Sabinanigo, I stopped briefly by a river where there was the most incredible noise coming from a collection of toads living in the rivers margins.

"Toad river" - looked an ideal trout water but I didn't spot any fish. It might run dry of course each year.

At Toad river I turned right again and headed towards Boltana on an incredibly scenic road that stayed close to the Rio Guarex and features some amazing waterfalls, and fields of wild flowers.

The Pyrennes getting steadily closer

Cyclists in front of a beautiful (and incredibly isolated) house on the way to Boltana

One highlight of this backroads route was the occasional totally unspoilt village that I came across, the best being perhaps Campodarbe.

Campodarbe

The descent towards Boltana - another hairpined road.

Boltana in the distance.

Poppies in a field close to Boltana

First sign to France - maybe 40km from the border

One of my better photos - poppies and mountains on the way to the border

As I approached the border, it was more and more clear that there were huge banks of clouds stuck on the mountains. As I passed through the tunnel to France, the weather was noticeably different on the French side. Low cloud, much cooler.

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At Arreau, I turned off the main road and started the ascent that would ultimate get to La Mongie and the Col du Tourmalet. First pass was the Col D'Aspin, also a famous cycling pass. There were loads of cyclists making the 12km ascent from Arreau, with helpful signs every km telling them the average gradient of the next section - not information I would have wanted to know in the circumstances. The top of the Col D'Aspin was really cold - most people huddled in coats. Well done to the two cyclists who got to the top just as I was there.

Down the other side and a stop in a little village for some food at a spot obviously used by cyclists for the start of their ascents from this side. A "plat du jour" meals of steak, chips and salad followed by ice cream. Not bad for 8 euros.

As I approached La Mongie, the weather got much worse and visibility really dropped. There were banks of snow on the sides of the road as I came up the Tourmalet, indeed I barely realised I was there when I got to the top the cloud was so thick. So a bit disappointing that this wasn't better.

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And from there it was a drop down towards Lannemezan and the motorway to Toulouse. Still 150km to go to Toulouse at this point and I was very glad that I had decided to not try and make it to the Chateau. Instead the car is now parked up at Toulouse airport for a couple of weeks. I was in bags of time for my flight - perhaps 3 hours early - only to find that it was delayed 2 hours. I arrived at Gatwick just after 1:00am just missing the coach to Oxford and had to wait for the 3:00am departure instead. So I arrived in Oxford just after 5:00am and ready for a really good rest. Emma was home for a couple of days before her exams start and so I did see her for the first time in nearly two months, which was really nice.