Category: Hiking

We decide to take a look at the Cirque de Gavarnie – one of the popular tourist sites in Pyrenees. The track starts in the village Gavarnie. It is cloudy and rainy while we drive but the weather gets better when we arrive at the parking place (4 euros). The track follows the main street of the village initially. When out of the village it transforms to the wide path and starts to go uphill. The Cirque de Gavarnie is covered by the clouds mainly. When it shows up we see the high rock wall with several waterfalls looks stunning. We proceed to the main waterfall to take some shots (and get wet there in a second).

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We take another path for the way back – it goes by the mountain slope to the Pailla cirque. The track is really good with beautiful views to the mountains.

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We get back to our car and drive to Cirque de Tromouse. To get there we have to pay 4 euros and to drive 30 road bends. Still the cirque is not there – at least we cannot see it because of the fog 🙂 We take a short stroll to the monument of the Virgin de Tromouse as long as we are there. The monument stands on a hillock in front of the (invisible) Cirque de Tromouse.

Back in Luz we buy a Grand Polka (a large round loaf of bread) and go home to enjoy it 🙂

Download file: gmt-06-gavarnie.gpx

Our track starts near the mountain pass Col de Tourmalet. We park the car four km behind the pass in an empty parking place (a ski resort out of the season).

There is llama herd next to the parking place. The track to the 2724m high Le Pic des Quatre Termes follows the ski slope. The direction is upwards though. At the half way to the summit we turn to the steep path in a slope full of rocks and stones. The climbing is not so easy anymore, we have to work hard to get to the 2660 meters high pass. Standing on the pass one can see that our summit is wrapped in clouds. What we can see apart from the clouds looks like steep cone of solid rock. We decide that we will not manage this and select a slightly lower summit to conquer. The gorgeous view to the summits and number of lakes is the reward for this effort. Next we move further by the Quatre Termes because the descent is planned down the other side. Still the path we select takes us surprisingly to the Quatre Termes summit. 🙂

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The descent is a tough one – all the way through the chaos of rocks. The trip ends at 7p.m., it lasted more than 9 hours. We have walked about 10km, height difference 1100m.

Download file: gmt-05-quatre-termes.gpx

The clouds have covered the mountains around in the morning – we wonder what the weather will be like. The today’s trip starts near the Luz. We have to drive across the impressive Napoleon bridge and then up by the mountain road a pair of km to the start of the track.

The path to Lac de Bastampe goes up the beautiful woody slope. The lake is 2019m above the sea level, the height difference is about 1000m, the total distance – 15km. The weather is capricious – partly sunny, partly foggy. When up near the lake we get surrounded by wet clouds.

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We get wet and cold – hence we decide to go down after a short rest. When close to the parking the sunny weather is back. That’s ok.

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Later on we stroll the center of the Luz and buy some treats. There is no internet in our apartment – still there is one outside the doors. That’s ok 🙂

Download file: gmt-04-bastampe.gpx

We drive further on to Pyrenees by the Clermont Ferrand and Tolousse to le Viaduc De Millau. The tallest pillar is 343n high (the tallest bridge pillar in the World as our brochure says). The cars drive as high as 270m above the ground level and Tarn river.

There is a large parking place next to the bridge. Leaving the car there we follow the wide path up to the bridge. The view of the bridge is excellent here and we enjoy it a lot.

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We drive further to Albi next. Albi features a huge cathedral (the largest brick-made cathedral in Europe). We take a look on the cathedral, it’s beautiful garden and the stone bridges across the Tarn. There is a special point where one can make a shot of the two bridges as if they are one two story bridge. Looks perfect.

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Next we proceed to our Pyrenees accommodation in Luz-Saint-Sauveur. We find it only after making inquiries in a local café. The door of our apartment is open and the key is in the lock from the inside. We have a living room with a kitchen, parents bedroom, the small niche with a two story bed (for children 🙂 ), a bathroom, wc and a balcony.

The road repairs continues in Germany as well – with only one more thankfully 🙂 Perhaps we lost an hour because of that. It starts to rain as well and the rain follows as through the Germany almost till the France border. It’s sunny when we reach our second accommodation Auberge du Herisson (Hedgehog’s Inn). We change our clothes and go out to view seven waterfalls of Herisson stream. The path takes us down some 250 meters by the waterfalls. Having a good view of them all we return by the same path.

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The dinner at the Auberge du Herisson completes the busy day.