Day 22, Friday, Arudy

The weekly market was running in Cauterets. We arrived shortly after 9am. It was still quiet. We bought a couple of items which won’t fit into Anne’s already bulging suitcase for the trip home.

We had flan from the market for breakfast.

Anne overheard a conversation in French between Thomas and a couple checking out before us. The nice lady serving dinner is his aunt, not his mother. His mother does the cooking. This is our favourite hotel ever. We’ll have to come back sometime. It has the superlative location, free municipal parking in the street behind, warm wooden decor, a lift, a laundrette across the street, an electrically heated towel rail to dry our undies, the superb dining room. Almost perfect. I’d rate it 10, but the picture frame above our bed was hanging slightly askew.

Anne wanted to see the private zoo at Argeles-Gazost, halfway toward Lourdes, so we headed there.

Like many such attractions, it seemed expensive, but ended up being good value.

Plan of the zoo. You follow a defined course, but you can elect not to climb up to the heights.

We spent most of 4 hours at the zoo. Since it was so close, it seemed obvious that we should drive over the Col d’Aubisque then decide where to go after that. The road was good up to the Col de Soulor, then got quite narrow.

That’s the road ahead, chiselled out of the stone wall, past the sheep. Cows and horses on other parts of the road. We were on the outside, with the drop just to the right of our wheels.

It was most interesting squeezing past oncoming vehicles where it was narrower than this, with no room for bollards.

This may be the last col for this trip, unless the weather improves.

This 74 year old cyclist is riding the length of the Pyrenees. I couldn’t get his phone to take a good photo, so I used mine and emailed the photo to him. I need the iphone level indicator.

I was amazed when two of these vehicles turned left out of the car park, the way we had come. This is not fair to other road users, especially those oncoming vehicles at the edge of the abyss. Maybe they just didn’t know the road narrowed from here. I hope they are good at reversing.

Don’t approach the animals. We take no responsibility for accidents.

We ended up staying in the Hotel de France in Arudy, right next to the Town Hall. The wiffee was iffy. OK when working, but intermittent.

Dinner in the hotel dining room was excellent. Again, we were the only foreigners. The aperitif menu listed Murancon as a mix of Creme de Mure and Jurancon sec. This town is very close to the Jurancon wine district near Pau, and sec is the dry version. This hotel’s Murancon had the taste we remembered, with less Jurancon, more Creme de Mure. Dan Murphy carries Creme de Mure (at $82 per litre). We’ll need an Australian substitute for the Jurancon. Should I trademark “Murossa”?

Many people here have been surprised when I used my phone to pay amounts greater than €100. There is a limit here of €30 for contactless payments. Then again, occasionally it doesn’t work and I need to insert the card and sign. The signature may be necessary only for foreign cards. It didn’t work here in the Hotel de France. It’s been so good overall that we have used an ATM just once in 3 weeks.