The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

From St. Girons you continue this progress parallel to the watershed and right among the high peaks, by taking the cross road from St. Girons to the valley of the Garonne. Just before the railway station at St. Girons turn sharp to your left, taking the road which goes up the left bank of the Lez. At this starting point you are not more than 1300 or 1400 feet above the sea; at Audressein (300 feet up) turn to the right, cross the river, and begin to climb the upper valley until you reach the col of Portet-d’Aspet at about 3400 feet, that is, some 2000 feet above St. Girons, and between 15 and 20 miles from that town. From this col the road descends rapidly down the valley of the river Ger, falling in 5 miles 1500 or 1600 feet. At the end of the 5 miles you take a road that goes sharp off to the left before reaching the village of Sengouagnet, this road going off to the left crosses a low watershed, makes, at the end of another 5 miles, a great loop round the forest of Moncaup (the church of which village you leave to the left just before making the turn), and comes down into the great open plain into which the valley of the Garonne here enlarges. It is one of the finest enclosed plains in the Pyrenees, and to come down upon it by this road is perhaps the best way to approach it.

The first village in this plain is Antichan, thence several long windings take one down to Frontignan below, and thence it is a straight road through Fronsac to Chaum where there is a bridge over the river, and where the plain of which I have spoken terminates in a narrow gateway through the hills. You cross the river by this bridge, fall at once into the great national road upon the further or left bank, and a straight run of not more than 12 miles in which one only rises 300 or 400 feet up the tributary valley brings one to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Though at the end of an even shorter day than was Ax from Perpignan, Bagnères will make a convenient stopping-place after a good deal of hill climbing and roads the surface of which, especially in the early summer, is occasionally doubtful. Bagnères has, of course, everything that people motoring can want, it is the capital of the touring Pyrenees, and even if this cross journey has not proved enough for one day, the character of Bagnères makes it the right place to stop at on the second day.

Though Bagnères is right in the middle of the mountains, but a mile or two from the frontier of Spain, not 6 miles, as the crow flies, from the watershed and within ten of the highest peaks of the Pyrenees, yet the importance of the town has caused good communications to spring up around it, and there is an excellent road crossing straight over from the high valley of Bagnères into the next high valley, the Val d’Aure. It starts at the market-place just opposite the new church, crosses the col called “Port-de-Peyredsourde,” and comes down into the main road of the Val d’Aure at Avajan, which follows down the stream at an even gradient to Arreau, 7 miles further on.

Arreau is the capital of the Val d’Aure, and when you have reached it you will have come about 20 miles from Bagnères.

The next parallel valley to the Val d’Aure is that of the Gave-de-Pau: the valley which has at its mouth the town of Lourdes, and at its head, right under the Spanish frontier, the famous village and cliff of Gavarnie. There is, indeed, a small subsidiary valley in between where the Adour takes its rise, and of which Bagnères-de-Bigorre is the capital, but it is shorter and stands lower than the two main valleys upon either side. The section I am about to describe, the great new road from the Val d’Aure to the Valley of Lourdes, just touches this upper valley of the Adour but does not pursue it.

The cross road from Arreau in the Val d’Aure to Luz in the valley of Lourdes is the steepest and the most diverse in gradient, as it is also by far the finest in scenery, of all the new sections which have recently been pierced through the highest parts of the range and between them build up what I have called “The Upper Road.” The distance as the crow flies from Arreau to Luz is not 20 miles, but the long windings of the road which take it over two passes, and the northern diversion necessary to turn the great mountain mass of the Port Bieil, lengthen it to nearly double that distance.

There is no mistaking this road. It branches off at Arreau, leaving the valley road not half a mile beyond the bridge and going to the left up a little side stream, the name of which I do not know. Within 2 miles it crosses this stream and begins to take the long complicated and graded turns up the mountain. One must be careful, by the way, at the point where the road crosses the stream to turn sharp to the right and not go straight on towards Aspin, for though one can get to the main road again from Aspin, it is by roads too steep for a motor. If one so turns to the right, the road goes up to the col in great zigzags and climbs in some 6 or 7 miles the 2000 feet between Arreau and the summit, thence it falls rapidly for 3 or 4 miles to a point where the new road cuts off the corner the old road used to make. It is important to recognize this point, not only because it saves one at least 6 or 7 miles of travelling, but also because it saves one going right down into the valley of the Adour and climbing up again. I will therefore attempt to fix for the traveller the exact place where he must turn off to the left, though the description is difficult on account of the absence of any landmark.

As you come down from the Col d’Aspin, you run through a wood along the mountain side for perhaps 2 miles. The road sweeps round the curve of a gulley on emerging from this wood, crosses the rivulet of that gulley, and comes down close to the stream at the foot of the valley which is the source of the Adour. Just at this point a road will be seen coming in from the left, descending the slope of the valley beyond the stream and crossing it by a bridge. This is not the road you are to take. You must continue on the same road you have been following down from the pass, until, in about half a mile, it crosses the stream to the left bank, and approaches on that bank a wood that lies above one on the hill. Immediately after this bridge there is a bifurcation; one branch goes straight on, the other goes off to the left; this last is the one you must follow. The branch going straight on is the old road which leads down the valley of the Adour, and from which one used to have to double back some miles on at an acute angle to reach Luz. The new road, which you must thus take to the left, cuts off that angle.

There are no difficulties from this point onward. The road winds a good deal round the hill-side, and almost exactly 5 miles from the point where you turned into it you come again upon the main road to Luz over a bridge that crosses a stream. Just where you join that main road it begins its long climb up to the pass called Col du Tourmalet.