Basque country or bust!: Day 6 - Col du Soulor, Col d'Aubisque and hell in Lourdes.

The day didn't start well today. I had an awful night's sleep and woke up several times with varying degrees of headache. So I slept in a bit to try and re-address the balance. I didn't really want to do that much today so I drove off towards Argeles Gazost and went up the Col du Soulor again. This time I was stuck behind a Citroen Xantia with a dodgy exhaust rather than a Fiat Panda towing a cow but at least this time I managed see something, it was fog free! I took a few photos of the huge mountain next to the Col in changeable weather and I was ready to head to the Col d'Aubisque when a couple of huge birds flew overhead. Naturally I stopped to park up and have a closer look. I was soon joined by a retired old boy from England who wanted to know if I was as keen a bird spotter as himself! He looked disappointed when I said I wasn't but when a couple of bloody great birds of prey streak across the sky above you it's far more interesting than watching your average Blue Tit or Chaffinch nibbling at a bran flake in your back garden.

Apparently according to old man twitcher they were none other than bearded vultures. Birds famous for dropping bones and/or tortoises onto rocks to smash them open to get at the bone marrow or the tortoises liver! They are magnificent in flight though. Their wingspan nears the 3 metre mark.

I gave it 5 or 10 minutes for them to circle above again but they'd gone. Only for them to re-appear at the lower car park. So I gunned Bertha into life and followed them down the hill. I managed to get a couple of decent shots and had a brief chat with a German fella who looked like the big german lad in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The one who fought Harrison Ford around the circling plane before getting mangled by the propeller. Bald head, fantastic moustache.

Then it was on to the Col d'Aubisque. Unfortunately it was shrouded in deepest Scottish fog again but the approach was absolutely stunning, especially a huge tunnel bored into the rockface. From there it was a downhill challenge down to the small ski resort of Gourette, then the Spa town of Eaux-Bonnes with it's completely over the top huge casino and very little else. Then I headed towards Laruns and Castet before turning onto the D35 which takes you back towards Lourdes via a small town called Bruges. Quite a nice little place actually. At least there was no Colin Farrell with velcro eyebrows.

On the way back to Lourdes I saw several signs calling for support for a strike on milk production. God knows what thats all about. EU subsidies or are the big Supermarkets over here squeezing the prices? Also talking about public protests. There's a big thing over here in this neck of the woods to stop the government from building a big rail/road tunnel through the central Pyrenees. Personally I think its a great idea but I can't see how they build it without wrecking a lot of scenery, which after spending some time here would be awful. From Luz, there are 4 possible ways to get into Spain. One is the Bielsa tunnel, secondly the Col du Pourtalet, then the Col du Somport through the tunnel and then the quickest route into Spain is to head west on the Autoroute and then go down towards San Sebastian. The first two have very small approach roads, the third is a long detour and the fourth is just taking the long way around. I was doing some research on how long it would take me to get to Vitoria in the Basque country and the quiclest route, although 80-90 miles longer, is the autoroute option which would take me 3 hours. If I went on the Pourtalet crossing it would take almost 5 hours and thats provided you don't get stuck behind a motor home. The thing is that the TGV goes as far as Lourdes and the road to Lourdes isn't bad, so you would think that the writing is on the wall. It's a tiny bit like Scotland really, you wouldn't want to ruin the natural scenery but it would be handy!

It got me thinking about the title of the blog. I actually think the outcome will be bust rather than basque country. I can't really justify flogging the car for another 10 hours in order to get there. I might be a viscount biscuit short of a packed lunch but I'm not that stupid!

Stupid would be to spend anymore time than necessary in Lourdes. What an awful place that is. If you want to see a place crammed with coachloads of tourists, nuns in the street and neon kebab signs then this is the place for you. When I drove through earlier today everybody seemed to have the arsehole as well including one irate woman who shouted at me for not stopping on a zebra crossing. After being brought up in the UK, you always stop for pedestrians on zebra crossings and you are obligated to do so. When I've been a pedestrian in France, Italy or Spain drivers actually seem to speed up, so when in France I keep going. She wasn't very happy and she was even more upset when the local driver behind me didn't stop for her either. I got an angry "et alors" from her and he got a hysterical "et alors"! I did however stop an another crossing for a young family later on but once you let them cross over they take an absolute age to do so! Merde alors! You can't win.

Right, some photos from the day...

The view from the Col du Soulor