Saturday, June 18th –Ax-les-Thermes to Bagneres-de-Luchon

I don’t have a lot of notes from today.  Left hotel after breakfast to a cold and drizzly morning.  Took the N20 to D8 to D18, then D8f over Col de LaTrape, which while not overly technical was quite beautiful with big views and a surprise waterfall.



Nice place for breakfast in the hotel  They didn’t seat us there though.



Croissant not up to usual French standards



Bike were safely tucked away all night (photo by Dave)



Starting up Col de LaTrape



Unexpected waterfall




Couldn’t make this shot work out like I wanted.  Slow shutter speed for waterfall goodness would have made Dave a yellow smudge going by.  Fast shutter speed to keep Dave sharp means waterfall looks static.  Couldn’t win.



Dave and Peter



All of us



My trusty steed



Our first of what would turn out to be many encounters with livestock on the roads



Hi there!



That’s the guys in the distance out there



Col de LaTrape was quite scenic



Here comes Peter



“Hey guys, did I pick a good road?”



My F700GS



Lots of writing along the roads.  Some of the routes we chose are used by the Tour de France, might have something to do with it.



(photo by Dave)



Picture time



Pano time



Dave heads down the pass





Both Dave and Peter freely admit they completely flubbed that hairpin



My turn



We lingered over lunch in Siex, then began the search for gas.  The station in town was closed, and the GPS was not being very helpful.  So we pressed on, continuing to D17 and over Col de la Core.  Once we dropped down from that road we were all showing 2 bars so the search for fuel began in earnest.  We continued on our route for a few more kms until we came to a village with some kids walking around and I enlisted their aid by pointing at my gas tank and miming looking around.  They pointed us in a direction, but no clue as to how far or if we needed to make any turns.  Our lack of knowing the local language was proving to be more of an issue on this trip than in any past ones.  We spent most of our time in small French and Spanish towns and hardly anyone spoke English.





Lunchtime



Doing my best Bond villain impersonation (photo by Dave)





Town has some quite narrow roads.  The tall buildings only amplified the effect



Very cute town





Col de la Core



Dave investigating the sextant-looking things.  Each one pointed to a different distant feature.



Trying to make my little baby look mean

A couple twists and turns and some false positives later we had a fix on the gas station in Saint-Giron, 13 kms off-route.  Once we had full tanks again we backtracked on D618 to get us back on route.  D618 led to D44, then we picked up N125 near Lez and headed south.  We dropped into Spain briefly on N230, and immediately there were 2 well-marked and large gas stations within a few kms of each other.  Spain seems to have a similar approach to gas stations as the US (large, well-marked, obvious locations, mini-marts, etc) whereas France seems to hide them in random places, and they are often just pumps.



Beer selection in gas station.  Unbelievably good choices!

N141 twisted us back out of Spain into France, then D618A took us to the hotel for the night in Bagneres-de-Luchon.  D618A (I think) was newly resurfaced so for the first few kms it was basically a gravel road, which Peter and I were not loving.  Dave has been missing his WR so he was enjoying himself.

A most lovely hotel staffer guided us down a long narrow lane to park our bikes in their garage, then we wandered the town for a while and got some dinner.  Surprise fireworks kicked off later in the night, part of the summer solstice celebration going on all over this part of Europe.





Our hotel for the night



Garage for the hotel was a ways down this alley



Dinner



Kronenburg is no substitute for Affligem





Nothing like almost being asleep and hearing mortar fire down the road