We get up at seven and take a look through the studio window at the mountains – no clouds, sunny. Means – this should be a perfect day for Breche de Roland. We drive to the Gavernie village, then forward to the pass Col de Tentes. At 9:40am we start our track to Breche de Roland. The track follows an old unused (scattered by of rocks) road. Then the path starts that goes by the hillside to the Refuge de Roland. There we see a marmot – he does not object much that we take some shots. Later on the tracks goes steeply up by the torrent – chains ar installed and have to be used.
When reaching the refuge we can see already a giant gap in the mountains. The legend tells that the gap is cut out by the knight Roland. The gap is 100m deep and 40m wide! We proceed to the gap over the glacier and then up by the rocky track. We are there at 12:20. France behind, Spain ahead, high cliffs left and right, the sun above. Stunning!
Next stop is Gavernie. When inside the town we see a lonely donkey by the road side. I stop the car and go out to socialize with it. When coming back I hear a donkey shout. The donkey follows me with apparent intention to punish me for not treating him. I am not inclined to discuss this with him so I close the doors and we drive on.
We go through the village to the famous Cirque de Gavarnie. The mountain ridge forms something similar to circus indeed. There is a waterfall that starts from the very top of the circus and apart from that the water falls from the top by the numerous tiny streams across all of the circus. While we proceed to the giant wall dark clouds accumulate above the circus. Now it has walls and a roof as well. Looks really impressive – Ilze hurries to take shots.