Pyrenees summer 2009

[Harald Hansen]

Some pics from our Pyrenees trip this summer. We live in the north of Europe, so the trip to get there was rather long... Our plan was to follow the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean, and to see as many backroads and trails as possible on our three week summer holidays. The vehicles were two 2000 MY Discovery 2 Td5s, one manual (ours) and one automatic (our friend's). We had booked one week of guiding for the area around Andorra from Wayne and Helen at Landtreks, whom we much recommend to others as well. The whole trip was about 6000 km.

Day 1: Only six hourse of sleep the night before, and lot of preparations in the last minutes. We also had to go back home after a few minutes driving, as we had forgotten the camera!

The rear of our Discovery.

Ready to go.

The dynamic duo (our kids) really ready to go.

We caught the Oslo-Kiel overnight ferry on both legs, so we would be rested when going onto the Autobahn. We didn't have the oldest cars on the ferry, as you can see above.

The first days through Germany, the Netherlands and France were rainy.

These peculiar hills dotted the landscape in a part of northern France. Looked artificial to me, maybe from mining?

Sunflower season in France.

We tried to avoid toll roads, which sometimes led us astray. Here we're crossing a wine field in France.

Last stop before the Pyrenees proper were Biarritz. Here we're playing in the surf. It was daugther's first swim in a proper ocean.

Our first glimpse of the Pyrenees, east of Biarritz.

 

[Harald Hansen]

There were many small villages. Here we barely managed to get the Discos into town (remember, they are big vehicles by European measures), but at least they had a traffic light!

We finally managed to get some altitude. This is day seven of the trip, the 12th of July.

Here we are with our guides from Landtreks, Wayne and Helen (white Defender 110) and the Statham family (green Defender 110), the third customer vehicle on our tour. All were very nice people, and the Statham boys, three of them aged 8 to 11, entertained our smaller kids all week.

Our first close encounters with the local fauna.

Som kind of violet and yellow flowers were in bloom while we were there. This picture does not show half of it, there was yellow and violet everywhere.

Typical Pyreneean village.

On the trail.

Emil (1 1/2 years) on his first big expedition.

Typical village.

Up in the mountains there were a lot of abandoned farms and tiny hamlets. Some of them were partway restored, both for use as summer houses and because of conservation efforts.

 

[Harald Hansen]

Many places there were horses on summer grazing.

The Stathams' Defender.

Creek.

We managed a spot of wading, despite it being the dry season.

View.

This was about as difficult as conditions were in mid-summer. Spring and fall is worse.

More water under the tyres.

Here we are almost at the highest point of the trip, around 2400 meters.

These antennas scared the electronically controlled gear box in our friends' Discovery. It went into limp home mode until we got a bit down the track again.

 

[Harald Hansen]

From Sort in Spain. The town has a witch as a mascot, and is widely known for its top winning lottery outlet, and people come from all over Spain to buy lottery tickets. Aiva (4 1/2 y.o.) on the right.

View.

The castle in Foix in France. At this point we're leaving the Pyrenees on the Mediterranean side.

VW Bug on a road trip. Wild camping is not allowed in France, so we had to stay in campgrounds.

We started to notice that we were further south. Here we are on our way to St. Tropez.

A quick dip in St. Tropez in the evening.

Winding road in the Pre-Alps. Finally going north and homeward again.

We stopped in Laboe in Germany and saw this monument to fallen German sailors through the ages.

Waiting for catch the ferry home. The "ferry" is really a mini cruise ship, BTW, with nicely appointed cabins and decent resturants.

 

[RedDog]

Very nice! Thanks.

 

[taco2go]

What a beautiful area!

 

[jeepmedic46]

That is very beautiful country. Thank you for sharing those great photos.:ylsmoke:

 

[KSJeep]

Really enjoyed your write up and pics, Thanks

 

[Haggis]

What a great post! It's nice to know that people half way around the world do the same things as we do here...like turning around to go back and get the forgotten camera. We seem to have to dart back to get something or other on every trip no matter how hard we planned. Anyway, great pics and thanks for posting them up.

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

I just added this to my "to do list." :drool:

 

[nightfoam]

Wow, what a great trip. You're lucky to be able to just drive across Europe, I think a lot of us would have a few more logistical problems

From Sort in Spain. The town has a witch as a mascot, and is widely known for its top winning lottery outlet, and people come from all over Spain to buy lottery tickets. Aiva (4 1/2 y.o.) on the right.

Were you concerned we wouldn't be able to tell which is which?

 

[abbeyroad]

Love the pics of the village with the red tile roofs and the tiny hamlets. Lots of history and stories if those old walls could talk.

 

[Harald Hansen]

Thank you for your kind words, everyone.

The area really is beautiful. The tree limit is far higher than I'm used to here in Norway, where it's less than 1000 m in my area, I think. In the Pyrenees we got over 2000 meters and there were still lush forests, at least on the northern side. Much of the land is cultivated or used for grazing, and in different states of use or abandonment. It's really interesting to see. I loved the small abandoned hamlets, but could not really explore them much because of the safety of the smaller kids we had along.

And European integration, especially the Schengen Agreement made the whole trip a breeze, bureaucracy-wise. We didn't see a single manned border crossing, usually just a sign informing us that we changed nations and advising on the local speed limits.

The main difficulty was the language. Most places we found noone who could speak English, but things always worked out with a bit of hand-wawing and pointing at things. It helps that many words about food have come from French and Spanish. Just remember that poisson is fish and pain is bread in French, not some very kinky menu options. Anyway, I apparently have an ear for lanugage, and managed to pick up a few phrases and words along the way. So at each campground I rattled of something like "un car avec tent, deux adults, deux enfants, electrique, sill vous plait" and we were usually set. But almost noone gave us grief about the language, at least not after we first gave the local language a try, and they realised we were not British.

The main lesson I picked up was to reset our internal clocks to Pyreneean time. Eat when the locals eat, and don't try to get anything done during the siesta. It just won't happen.

 

[jeff_wright]

Sounds like and incredible trip! Beautiful scenery..... I love the villages.

 

[Jacket]

Outstanding! Mountains, beaches, adventure - your trip had all the perks. Thanks for the report.