At Bagnère-de-Bigorre in the Pyrenees, we were just about as far south in France as it’s possible to be without being in Spain. 😀 Having enjoyed an amazing spell of clear blue skies in the mountains, we had to face…
Author: Franco
Another Victory for Automation
Remember those halcyon days in shops when the shop keeper would look at your item, know the price of it and ring that price straight into the till/cash register? That system was very quick and efficient for the paying customer.…
Lac d’Ourrec
We’ve scored two strikes on walking up various high bits of the Pyrenees so far. A trip or two ago, we decided to strike out for Andorra starting at one of our favourite mountain locations, the barrage de Soulcem. We…
Posted in 2011 Autumn Tagged with: Bagnere-de-Bigorre, France, Lac d'Ourrec, photography, Pyrenees, travel
Fêtes des Mariolles
All of our exploring here at Bagnères-de-Bigorre has begun by driving up the Vallée de Campan. Campan is a large village/small town a few kilometres east of us which we had to pass through to get to the climbs up…
Posted in 2011 Autumn Tagged with: Bagnere-de-Bigorre, Campan, France, photography, Pyrenees, travel
Col d’Aspin
Having driven up the giant Col du Tourmalet yesterday, we thought we’d try another of the Tour de France cols, the Col d’Aspin. The most important quality an organizer of Le Tour can possess is that he or she be…
Posted in 2011 Autumn Tagged with: Bagnere-de-Bigorre, Col d'Aspin, dragonflies, France, nature, odonata, Payrolle, photography, travel, wildlife
Col du Tourmalet
When we were camped in Fanjeaux last week, we visited one of this year’s Tour de France mountain top finishes, the Plateau de Beille, and very pretty it was, too. Now we’ve moved west we are in the high Pyrenees…
Posted in 2011 Autumn Tagged with: Cirque de Gavarnie, Col du Tourmalet, France, Lourdes, photography, travel
To the Mountains
In our experience, you can’t plan a trip to the mountains (in Europe, at least). We are not beach people, we are much more at home in the countryside and there is no more majestic countryside than mountains. The trouble…
The Canal du Midi
One of the attractions for us here at the Fanjeaux campsite is that it is run by the friendliest, most welcoming French family we’ve ever met. A regular visitor soon feels like a personal friend. The aspect that makes it…
Plateau de Beille
Francine and I have become fans of the Tour de France. I think one of the main reasons is that, after a 6-ish-week trip around France in June and early July, the three weeks of Le Tour when back at…
Satan’s Little Disciples
I spotted farmer Luc down cleaning les sanitaires on Wednesday so I went for short natter, largely as an opportunity to voice my concerns about the effect the intensive fish farming was having on the wildlife of his site, in…
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