Category Archives: Europe 2023

Our time in the Loire valley was coming to an end and we thought we should head towards our vague destination of the Pyrenees, so south. This was going to take us through Auvergne and one of the highlights of the area is the Parc des Volcans an area of dormant volcanoes. The plan wasContinue reading “Puy de Dôme”

We knew after completing the hike we were going to be pretty exhausted and as our previous nights campsite wasn’t ideal we decided on a different spot just under an hour away. It was still in the same region and known for its hiking through the mountains. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay in Mont Dore whichContinue reading “La Bourboule”

Our meandering around France was really quite fantastic but we did have a goal of enjoying the Pyrenees and after getting a little taste of the mountains we decided to jump on the péage motorway and make a bee line for the southern border and continue our meandering down there. This was going against ourContinue reading “Cahors”

Our next stop was Bagnères-de-Luchon situated in the Pyrenees and selected due to its abundant hiking and mountain biking tracks. We decided to jump back onto the motorway to get there just because we thought our little van would appreciate it more rather than going up and down steep mountains. Plus the time difference inContinue reading “Bagnères-de-Luchon”

The next morning the sun came out and the sky was perfectly blue so off we went on our first hike. While there were plenty of hikes leaving from the town some others were a short drive away leaving from a spot called the Pont d’Espagne. It doesn’t take long for us to pack upContinue reading “Cauterets Hike Pont d’Espagne to Refuge Wallon”

Unlike Luchon Cauterets was definitely all open and had a bit of a holiday buzz about the place. We thought we would take advantage of the access to the top of the mountain being open and took the gondala up on our second day. While we were up there we thought we would have aContinue reading “Cauterets Hike Soum de Mauloc to Ilheou lake”

The next day we were lucky once more as when we woke in the morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We had a short drive to our chosen hike which was up to the Lac de Gaube and then further on up the valley towards the pic Vignemale which is the highest peakContinue reading “Cauterets Hike Pont d’Espagne to base Pic Vignemale”

We awoke to glorious blue skies so packed up quickly and were soon on the road to our next destination of Luz I think only about 10kms away as the crow flies but over the other side of a few mountains so it took us about half an hour. We had to wait for receptionContinue reading “Luz hike – Pic de midi”

Luz was another cute mountain town about the same size as Cauterets. Our campsite was walking distance to the town and on the walk in we had lovely views of an old ciditel perched on one of the surrounding hillsides. The main street was filled with the usual mix of restaurants, gift shops and storesContinue reading “Luz”