Wined, dined and rested.

We are eating up the miles now as we head for Spain, but we always make a stopover in the Pyrenees. You know how seasoned travellers always tell you “if you find somewhere lovely, don’t tell anyone about it”, well I’m going to break that rule (I’m such a rebel) but I’m also going to use the opportunity to spread some propaganda.  Read on if you dare …

 

If ever there was a reason to travel as we do, driving, surely mountains are a huge part of it?

 

We could have taken a plane to our first main destination and arrived several days earlier. We could have spent half a day packing all we needed for the holiday into a suitcase that seems enormous until you try to force your sponge bag in, then worrying about where to put the laptop or ipad in the hand luggage so that when you have to take everything out at airport security you can stuff it back in again even though some sorcery has made your hand luggage too small at this point to accommodate said laptop.

 

We could have waited in a series of lines at the airport, for example to check in – oh no, sorry, there is no check in now because we have the opportunity to spend twice as long as before using an automated weighing machine before taking the bags to the succinctly-named “bag drop” (do I want my bag dropped? Well, live with it oh modern traveller – never mind the check in process, we’ve all seen the baggage handlers treating our bags with loving care as we stare down from our porthole once we’re installed in what the airlines laughingly call our “seats”).

We could have been squeezed into a space that is too small, with legroom that is too short, and invited to spend money on shrink-wrapped food that is not disgusting, but what kind of recommendation is that? We could have remained in this unnatural pose, with the toddler behind us discovering all the joy that is to be found in slamming their seat tray up and down on our backs, for a couple of hours (clearly travelling alone because what parent would allow them to do this?) then we could have been allowed to leave via a bus and another line or two while immigration officials with no sense of humour (because how anyone can look at my passport photo and not howl with uncontrollable laughter, or possibly fear?) decide whether to let us into their country. Then there is the race to the baggage carrousel, where the tallest person always stands in front of you so you can’t see your bag come round on its merry way and you watch helplessly as it bounces round again. Oh and then, oh joy, there is the hour and half wait in line to pick up your hire car.

All of this wouldn’t be quite so bad (well, it would actually….) if you didn’t have to do the whole thing in reverse on your return, thereby cancelling out the restful effects of your lovely relaxing holiday.

And you wouldn’t have seen the mountains.

After that rant, you deserve something amazing.  Here:

There are several places in the Pyrenees where you can drive through to Spain, and the valley of the Aspe is one of our favourites.

 

We went exploring here a few years ago and discovered this, the “Cirque de Lescun”. I think I may have written about it at the time, but it deserves a second outing. There is a ring of mountain tops with fertile fields beneath them and plenty of walking trails and oh it is so, so beautiful. As with all monumental views, it cannot truly be represented in photographs, but since once you get there you can’t stop taking them I am giving you some here to give you a flavour of one of my favourite places.

We weren’t sure, in this year of Covid, how many walkers we would find at the little parking spot; well, as usual it was completely full of French and Spanish walkers setting off on what must be one of the most beautiful hikes in the Pyrenees.

 

The mountains sit there, upright and regal, graciously allowing all these little transient beings to scuttle up and down them with walking poles. Sometimes the play of light on the grey limestone peaks makes you wonder, against all logic in mid-July, whether they are actually covered in snow.

Then again, where you have mountains you have mountain streams, chuckling and splishing as they bounce ever downwards over stones that have become rounded after centuries of this tickling teasing by the freezing, clear mountain water.

 

So, in conclusion, having carefully compared air travel where the journey is a calvary to be endured and car travel where the journey is a vital, energising part of the holiday that takes you to places no aeroplane can, I can inform you here and now that I still prefer my kind of travel and the slow, wondering discoveries that are to be made in this way.  Oh, and the hilarious, ridiculous places and people that we sometimes come to know as well – but they belong in other posts.

 

This year’s journey is going to continue after this, but we have refreshed our eyes and our souls and can keep going until the next time.