We started at Eylie in the Biros Valley for our second wild camping walk in the Pyrenees. The day before consisted of close monitoring of the weather forecast to ensure that it was worth while climbing up into the mountains. The next day was forecast drizzle but the day after it said “a glorious sunny day”. We decided it was…
The first stage of my Pyrenees hiking trip was to get from England to France, and then into the mountains. I landed in Toulouse at 21.30 and spent the night at a hotel close to the airport. The next day we went to collect the hire car which my dad and I would share driving. The process went smoothly until…
From Nevers we decided to follow Eurovelo 6 all the way to the end – the estuary of the Loire in Saint-Nazaire. This is the final 600km home stretch of finishing both Loire a Velo and Eurovelo 6 in one fell swoop. About 100km along from Nevers we found the town of Gien. One of the best things I’ve discovered…
Back when we were planning where to go on this cycle tour, one of the options we thought of was nipping over the English channel to France and spending a few weeks meandering through the French countryside. In the end we settled on going from Romania to England of course, but I like to think that these last two weeks…
Walking to the top of the world Vignemale and d’Ossoue Glacier The Vignemale Massif section of the walk was incredibly beautiful but also incredibly steep! We started in Cauterets, a tourist hotspot known for its spas and skiing. We joined the tourist crowd for an hour in the morning, whilst they looked at cheese shops and novelty stores, I was…
A slight detour due to misfortune After walking up the Aspe valley and over Col du Moine in my last post, we dropped down into the valley to shelter from thunderstorms. The tops of the mountains were quickly shrouded in cloud and so we thought it would be a good opportunity to buy some fresh food and relax. The following…
Up the Aspe Valley The holiday started with flying from Bristol to Toulouse on the 21st June. I arrived to find in typical French fashion that the train service up into the Pyrenees was on strike. The issue was quickly resolved by booking a lift on Blablacar. Blablacar is an app that let’s people advertise where they’re driving to and…
We entered France at Lille and what felt like the worlds longest continuous highstreet. It went on, and on, and on. We spent so long on it that it started to feel like a timeloop. Every 10 minutes the same tram station would go past, and I would stare at it until I realised that it was ever so slightly…
The second overnight hike was up to Lac du Muzelle and back down the following day. One of the best bits of advice I can give for getting comfortable hiking and camping in the mountains is to do a couple of overnight trips up to the top of a valley. Camp as high as you can whilst still having water…
We arrived in the French pyrenees to find the mountains covered in cloud, obscuring the peaks and making us wonder if we had made the right decision. We camped at a nearby campsite in Cauterets and spent the day procuring supplies for the hike into the mountains and walking around the local town. The cloud had lifted from the mountain…