Day 78 – to Luvie-Juzon

It was a superb night up at the Col de la Hourcère, clear and extremely dark, with a good chance to examine the sky. From 2:30 pm yesterday afternoon, when a couple of motorcyclists passed, no vehicle went by at all. I doubt very much it will be like this in a month’s time.

I knew the rain was coming this morning, by 8 am it was clouded over, but didn’t quite get my timing right. It is just 8 kilometres between the Cols, to Soudet, which was also part of that stage on the 2020 Tour. It set in just as I got there. I wanted to get out for a couple of hours, but ended up cutting that short by 30 minutes, as it was heavy and any view disappeared pretty quickly.

Slowly, and now with a view of floating cloud disappearing and reappearing in the valleys, I drove down into Oloron Sainte-Marie, where I stocked up at the Intermarche, had lunch and weighed up options. With the hope of a drier evening, I meandered east, along the Gave river and up the Ossau valley for a few kilometres to the conglomerate of little villages that are big tourist attractions in the summer, Arudy, Izeste and Luvie-Juzon. At the latter, I found a hiker’s car park above the village and settled in to an hour’s work, and a couple researching options for the summer. Bampton Grange, with its ongoing party house problem next door to me, is not in the slightest bit appealing.

The rain did break at about 5 pm, and Roja and I put together a circuit that took in the village, in the off chance that a cafe was open, but after the holiday weekend, Tuesday has become the Monday rest day that bars and cafes in rural France villages take.

Just as we got back to the van the rain returned, and will be around for a few days. Not well timed this morning, but some improvement this afternoon.

This is the forecast for the Atlantic Pyrenees for the next few days.. time to head north maybe..