18/09/08 - Pats last few hills.

It was a bit of a driving day today. Although when you look at the
map, as the crow flies - we haven't gone far at all. Just gone over
the hill really.

An hour of along the valley and over a small pass (that cheated by
sticking a tunnel at the top to deny us a view), before we reached
Biescas, the first town that could be described as bigger than village
- however we still weren't able to find a supermarket. Not to worry,
we found a butcher, vegetable store, and pattiserie to cover all our
needs - we probably should have been shopping like that alot more
often cause you get so much more chance to try and stumble through a
view words of the local language.

Then it was up to Puerto de El Portale (1,794), and into France.
Almost down to Laruns, up to Col d'Aubisque (1,709) - all the way up
this road there was graffiti all over the road giving support to the
cyclist's of a recent (or lots of) race that obviously came up here -
possibly Tour de France? It definitely would have been a real good
hill to separate the men from the boys!! Then at the top (apart from
another amazing view), we had three oversize bikes sitting out in the
paddock looking as though they were just reaching the top. To make
the picture even cooler, about 20 dairy cows (complete with bells of
course) were all standing around the bikes. They were great at posing
for photos!!

Our next stretch of road had a sign all in French that we decided
translated to say that vehicles over 3 tonne could only go east to
west in the morning, and west-east in the afternoon - west-east was
our direction, so off we went. The road wasn't too bad - although I
still wouldn't have wanted to meet another large vehicle on some
spots. Once we made it to the other end of this section and took in
another great, but misty view - a couple of large campervans headed
along the way we came in the opposite direction - so I do wonder
whether we got the translation right, or did they just ignore the
sign?

Down to Argeles-Gazost, a very pretty French feeling village - where
we caught up on a little bit of internet, then, as we are back in
France we can continue to enjoy these designated free parking spots
that are dotted all around the country. This one was at the equally
pretty village of Pierrefitte-Nestalas, although it was very popular
as it seems there is a dog show on somewhere round here this weekend.
But we squezzed in after moving a few picnic tables about :-)