Last night after I had written day 1’s blog turned out to be a little more eventful, there was an almighty thunderstorm…in the end I had to close the shutters because the lightning and rain lashing against the windows was keeping me awake.
It was a bit of a late start because I had some work to deal with first thing (and will to again tomorrow). Ho hum.
The day started off cool (14C), but soon brightened up and was up into the 20’s, but every time the road headed into the mountains I ended up in cloud, it feels a little like 3 peaks from a couple of years ago! This is just one example…
Today was about taking in some of the cols used in the Tour de France and stitching in a few lesser known cols to make an A to B route.
It turns out that some of the lesser known cols are lesser known for a reason (Col de Lie I am looking at you), think Devon or Cornwall lanes and you have the picture.
Oh and while I am being critical, unless you really need to do Col du Tourmalet because of a cycling thing, don’t bother! The lower roads were really good, but when it got narrower and twistier there were too many people out of their comfort zone. It is the only road I have done so far that has been busy.
Lack of photos huh? Blame the weather! Here’s a reasonably impressive railway bridge – does that make it a viaduct? Problem is there aren’t many can compare with Snapper viaduct!
So the Cols were: Ichere, Marie-Blanque, Lie, Aspin, Tourmalet, Aubisque, Peyresourde, Portillon. I took photos of each of the signs, but that would be a really boring set of photos and my blogging skills do not include photo montages! So you will have to settle for the one taken at the top of Tourmalet in cloud (just to remind you why there are no stunning landscape photos).
In the interest of keeping the wildlife theme going I did try to take a photo of vultures, but they are almost as good as evading capture as dolphins, so good in fact that I will not waste your bandwidth.
Horses are quite easy, which is why I guess everyone who comes to the Pyrenees takes photos of them?
I was tempted to say bees are easy to photo as well, but to be honest I have only seen hives (or at least I assume that is what they are). There was a field in one valley with 10 times more hives than in this photo, but there was nowhere to stop. Apparently bees head for the hive when rain is imminent…unfortunately it was already peeing down by the time I found these ones, so that knowledge was not much help this time.
Oh I forgot about this photo (I’m a rubbish blogger), I rode down through the valley and then zig zagged up the mountain.
Oh and I am now in Vielha with this view.
