We left Torla around 10:30am and headed south for the very last time. The drive to Ainsa was scenic, but not as dramatic as what we had been seeing for the last five days or so. By the time we arrived at Camping Ainsa the thermometer had hit 35°C and for the first time this summer we could hear the cicadas scratching out their mating calls in the afternoon heat. We took it in turns to use the computer inside with the fan on full blast or sitting outside surrounded by a ton of wet washing hanging from tree to tree to Eileen to tree. A swim in the campsite pool and a few limps to the bathroom were about all we could manage on Wednesday.
Neither of us woke up before 10am on Thursday, so it was midday before we peddled our bikes down to the small town of Ainsa. It’s one of the first towns or villages that we’ve visited that hasn’t contained loads of derelict buildings and the mediaeval section on the top of the hill is lovely. The walk up to the top wasn’t so lovely, as the thermometer was now climbing towards 37°C. We had two long cold drinks sitting in the Plaza Mayor and then wandered through the old castle walls and up to the top of one of them for a great view over the town and surrounding countryside.
The bells in the church tower of the Iglesia Santa Maria were tolling slowly and sadly for quite a while and we had noticed a lot of people strolling across the plaza towards it. When we walked past, there were two hearses covered in flowers parked outside. The church was packed and there were many more mourners standing outside, it seemed like the whole town was there, so we moved on quickly and strolled back down the hill to our bikes. The ride back to the campsite involved a bit of bicycle pushing, not pleasant in the heat, but it helped to then spend a couple of hours cooling off in the swimming pool. Happy hour sangrias were served from 7pm and we followed this with chicken and chips from the barbecue grill, while we watched the sky turn pink from the café terrace.
Friday morning signalled the end of Spain for us. We set off up to the Haute Pyrenees again, it was yet another beautiful valley winding gradually uphill beside the Rio Cinca. At Bielsa we took a diversion up to the head of the Valle de Pineta to see the view of Monte Perdido; the opposite side from our hike on Tuesday. It was worth the diversion and a wonderful final panoramic view of the Haute Pyrenees in Spain.
The Tunel d’Aragnouet-Bielsa was today’s route through to France. We entered it at 1,664m and after 3kms under a mountain, we came out on the other side at 1,821m and the sun was still shining. The drive down the Neste de Saux was steep and spectacular with hairpin bends on top of hairpin bends and numerous cyclists heading up and down hill. There were far more towns and villages on the French side, most of them looking like ski resorts. At Arreau we turned left and headed steeply uphill, again along an incredibly twisting road, a road that turned out to be an 11km part of a stage of the Tour de France in 2012. It peaked at the Col d’ Aspin, a meadow full of friendly cows, lots of campervans and a panoramic vista over the Pic du Midi and the Massif de Néouvielle. I’ve decided the Pyrenees are a photographer’s nightmare; there are far too many fabulous views.
All the way we had passed numerous cyclists and I do not understand why these lycra-clad nuts would want to pedal up mountains, without a motor! Eileen found it hard and I felt exhausted just looking at the red puffing faces beside us. I wanted to throw a tow-rope out the back for a few of them; they looked near to heart attack stage. I tried calling out encouragement to some of them, but I think their ears were blocked with sweat.
We stopped on the Col for lunch and I had a chat with the photogenic cows before we headed down the steep hairpin bends on the other side towards Bagnères de Bigorre. Occasionally a cyclist overtook us; this time they had a smile on their faces and their hands on the brakes. As we got lower and lower the temperatures climbed higher and higher and the humidity felt like 99%. By the time we parked in Lourdes the thermometer was hanging around 38°C and our clothes were now soaked with sweat. We followed a road full of souvenir shops selling anything and everything to do with Bernadette Soubirous, a girl who allegedly had eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary and also dug out a spring in the Grotte de Massabielle. We decided we didn’t need a plastic bottle of holy spring water, a Bernadette necklace, a Bernadette tea-towel, a Bernadette bag, a Bernadette snow- dome or even a full-size statue of the Virgin Mary and walked on by.
But we were impressed with the area around the grotto. The Basilique Supérieure, which was built over the grotto, stands tall and impressive. Below it the grotto has been turned into a tiny chapel and there were queues of people shuffling behind a priest and a tall display of candles, each of them touching the rock wall and hoping for a miracle as they passed through. In front of the basilica and grotto is the newer and quite beautiful Basilique Souterraine St Pie X built partially underground in 1965. Beside it, the water from the spring has been channelled through pipes to a row of taps on the wall. Some people were filling their plastic bottles and others cupped their hands; as we hadn’t purchased the plastic bottle, we cupped our hands and cooled our overheated heads a little. Then as we walked away, my right knee stopped hurting. Rodney declared “it’s a miracle; the spring water does have healing properties”. I’ll admit to being a bit amazed, but sadly the knee locked up again the next day…..
We picked Camping de Sarasan because it had a swimming pool and we desperately needed to de-heat our bodies. It was only a small campsite with a small pool, but it felt more like a garden with a lovely variety of established trees; an oak, a chestnut, two copper beech trees, a sycamore; it was rather a nice spot for an overnight stop.
After a good ham and eggs breakfast we set off before 10am and Gertie GPS told us we had 580kms to drive from Lourdes to Julia and Kevin’s’ house near St Gilles Croix de Vie and that we would arrive at 5pm. A storm had whipped through during the evening and the temperature had dropped to 21°C, but all the views had disappeared in a damp mizzle. At this point it was fine; we had a long drive ahead and no air conditioning in Eileen, so we were glad for the cool change. We didn’t intend to drive the whole way in one day, we couldn’t do that to Eileen, but we thought we’d aim to get close to La Rochelle. We stuck to the main ‘D’ roads from Lourdes to Villeneuve de Marsan, keeping up a good speed and passing endless fields of corn. Then we were in the woods. We missed the mountains and I missed the coastline, so we counted campervans heading south. We reckon we passed an average of sixty per hour; the whole of Europe seemed to be on the move south, while we were heading north. As we approached Langon we started to see grape vines instead of corn and when we left Langon and crossed the Garonne River, that was about all there was to see as we crossed the Bordeaux region. We stopped for a while at St Emilion, which turned out to be a very picturesque stone village set on the side of a hill. Now we knew we were back in France.
Almost every shop was, of course, selling wine. Hundreds of different Bordeaux wines. Goodness knows how anyone chooses a good one. As far as I’m concerned, a ginginha with dark chocolate has a much better flavour. With our purchases safely stowed on board, we continued over the Dordogne River and up towards Mirambeau. It was 6pm and we were both hot and tired when we pulled in to Camping Chez Gendron. Rodney went to reception to check in and quickly returned to say they were full, but we could sleep in the car park !!! As it turned out there was a connection for electricity in the car park and the wi-fi was included, plus there were lovely views over the vineyard across the road, so we had no complaints.
There was quite a storm at bedtime and the temperatures really dropped this time. We drove out of the campsite carpark at 9:30am and for the first half-hour the only transport on the road seemed to be campervans, all heading south. We passed even more than we had the previous day and I got a bit bored of doing the campervan wave. We also passed abundant fields of sunflowers in full glory. Query of the day; do they rotate their heads to face the sun and then turn back at night, or do they keep rotating in a full circle. One day I’d like to sit in a field all day and watch what happens, or maybe I’ll just google it……
We bought a baguette in Beurlay and headed for Rochefort, maybe we would see some cheese shops at this Rochefort, there weren’t any at the Rochefort we drove through yesterday, there weren’t even any cows hanging around. Sadly we didn’t see any as we only skirted the city on the freeway. We did find a few showers of rain along the way, but at least the roads were straighter; no hairpin bends, no steep hills, or as Rodney The Journeyman put it “there’s no pretty bits, it’s all flat and boring”. Ah well at least it made the 220km trip a lot easier and faster. Arrival at Julia and Kevin’s was around 3pm and it signalled the start of a week where we didn’t have to feel guilty about our inability to speak French, or Spanish, or Portuguese; we could just rabbit. And we did.
