Category: Hiking

We had delicious white peaches at breakfast. As our waitress pointed out – Ariege has the weather and everything to grow peaches you do not find anywhere else. The story was supported with another pair of the marvelous fruits.

Having finished the breakfast we drive to Foix. The main place of interest there is the medieval stronghold of Foix that dominates the roots of the old town from the hilltop in the city center. The former stronghold of Counts of Foix now houses the Ariege departmental museum which exhibits medieval everyday objects, weapons and armor.

On a way to the castle we enter the cathedral – it has two organs inside. The castle has three towers – the round tower is built a couple of centuries later as the rest of the castle. We join here an guided tour. The armor exhibition was really good. We liked in particular the head armor for the horse.

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After the short stroll through the old town of Foix we proceed to Vicdessos valley – to tourist information center in Auzat to get the keys of our apartment. Near the Foix we detour to look at the Pont du Diable. The legend tells that the architect had a contract with the devil. The devil has promised to help build the bridge in exchange to the first soul that will cross the bridge. The bridge has been built during the night but nobody have used it. Until somebody had a bright idea to let a cat cross the bridge. The devil was in a rage, have lost the balance and have fallen down into abyss.

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It turned out that the keys we get in Auzat are of the town hall of Illier et Laramade village. The last three km to the Illier we drive uphill very narrow serpentine road. Entering the narrow (only one) village street  we get to our home for the next two weeks. The two story house as it looked like from the front turned out to be three story in fact. The architecture of the mountain villages has it’s peculiarities.

The destination of our trip is department of Ariege. The department lies about 100km south of Toulouse near the border of Spain and Andorra. To the East of the Ariege lies valley of Tet, (we visited it last year), to the West – Bagneres-de-Bigorre and Pic du Midi.

We start our journey on 7th September 2010 on a Ryanair flight to Brussels Charleroy airport. There we learn that our next flight to Perpignan is canceled due to the strike of the Airport control service. Ryanair kindly proposes change the flight to one 4 days later. We decide to go by train instead. To get one we have to go to Brussels by airport shuttle first. Here we get tickets to Lyon. TGV gets us there in 4 hours. The train to Perpignan was scheduled only the other day, so we decided to go to Montpelier instead. We arrive there at 11pm to find plenty of hotels in the city center – all of them with a plate Complet (fully booked) on the front door. To get  an accommodation we have to take taxi an drive through the night and thunderstorm to Les Balladens located near the airport. We are there at midnight.

We get our car (Fiat Panda) at Herz near Montpellier train terminal and take the freeway to Beziers, then a beautiful mountain road to Saint-Chinian, Saint-Pons-de-Thomieres, Lespinassiere, then by Carcassonne roundabout to Fanjeaux. We take a break there to stroll through the village. On the top of the hill stands a beautiful church. At the moment there was an exhibition of ritual costumes from the 14th century.

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Leaving Fanjeaux we proceed to Mirepoix, Lavelanet and then to the place of next accommodation on the main street of Saint-Pierre-de-Riviere village.

Ceļojuma dienas:

Foix

Pic des Trois Seigneurs

Lake Soucarrane

Pic d'Endron

Cascade d'Ars and lake Guzet

Lakes Picot

St. Giron and St. Lizier

Lake and pass Baxouillade

Village track

Pamiers and Montsegur

Lake Montestaure

Pic Fourcat

Refuge de Pinet

Pic de Girantes

Miglos stronghold and Pas de Ours

Camon and Montreal

We have an easy walk for today – a 500m up by the full of riffles Marcadou stream close to town of Cauterets. We walk a wide rocky path through the wood full of rocks. We are not moving fast because somebody stops all the time to shot the next rock or waterfall. We spend three hours on way up (instead of one and a half as the itinerary tells. The end point of our walk is 1500m high Pont d’Espagne. The huge parking lot is full of cars. A lot of people have come to enjoy the bridge and the waterfalls near it.

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No Spānijas tilta pa to pašu taku dodamies lejā. Ir jauks saulains laiks, uz akmeņiem sildīties ir iznākušas ķirzakas un gliemeži, daži atļauj sevi nofotografēt.

We descend the same path. It’s warm and sunny, the lizards and snails are out on the stones to catch the warmth of the sun. In Railliere near end of the track we visit some souvenir shops and not in vain 🙂

This is a last trip of our journey – tomorrow we return home.

Download file: gmt-14-pont-espagne.gpx

We wake up at 6am and drive to Cirque de Tromouse. We strongly believe that today the weather will be better then the couple of days before 😉

The weather is cloudy and there is a fog on a way up to the parking place. Still our worries are baseless. When we leave the car the sun appears above the mighty rock wall.

We start to walk. While we move closer to the wall we get into wall’s shadow a couple of times to enjoy the sunrise again 🙂 We walk by the wall there and back. Then ascend by a steep slope of marble to the Col de Seda and across it to the other side of the Cirque de Tromouse. There we move down to Col de Gela. The herd of about 40 wild goats moves by above us.

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Next we ascend to the 2851m high Pic de Gela. Its cloudy on one side and sunny on the opposite. We take a rest and then start to descend.

We have walked 20km in 9 hours, height difference 900m.

Download file: gmt-13-pic-de-gela.gpx

It’s a perfect weather today (to regret going home, perhaps). We drop in to the market of St. Lary Soulan (in the same parking place where we experienced the St. Johns feast there is a market on Saturdays). One can purchase here everything – fruits, vegetables, cheeses, vine, meat, honey and shoes, cases etc. We buy strawberries and drive to the parking place of lake Oredon.

We take the track to Lac d’Aubert and further to Col de Madamete. In the car park of lake Aubert a group of schoolchildren falls out of the coach and move on to the pass. Still they soon have a picnic and we manage to leave them behind. The snow covers the last stage of the path before the pass. We do not need the gaiters because the snow is hard enough. We have a rest on the pass and watch how a couple ascends to the summit of Madamete. We look carefully how they progress to the summit and then follow them by the same path. After a half an hour we are on the  summit. There is a gorgeous view from the top. We see Pic du Midi de Bigorre (sort of habit to see it), behind it the valleys full of clouds. Right in front of us there is one of the main summits of the region – Neouvielle. A number of lakes down the hills – the higher ones covered with ice. Having enough the sights we climb by the same path downwards.

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We drive to Pau – to our usual hotel Lui de Bearn. A large black dog meets us in the hotel. He is very friendly and perhaps would be happy to play with us. The hotel is almost empty – the other guests are at the wedding and should arrive later on. We do no wait for them – we have to get up early in the morning and get to the airport.