The Travelling Buncebury's

three photos - walking towards the Cirque du Gavarnie We turned south and upwards towards the Cirque de Gavarnie which turned out to be one of the great sites and sights. Parking was two or three miles from the Cirque itself and the walk to it was along a lovely valley with meadows to each side and a smallish river tinkling through it doing what seemed to be a terrible job at cooling things down a bit. However, we had no control to measure it against so I may be too harsh on what was an attractive bubbly little line of what had until very recently been snow. It was here we saw the only Edelweiss of our entire journey. A surprise because we’ve only seen it before on rocky slopes high in the mountains and this was a flat meadow with conifers dotted around and it’s not expected to start blooming until July. Unmistakably Edelweiss though, a funny little plant and I’ve never understood the fuss made about it. Maybe it is just that that old song made it well known.  yes, this is Edelw

    at the Col du Puymorens, Spanish Broom with a little snow thrown in  the village of Orlu this tiny village, Nohedes is in a closed valley and about 40 minutes drive from the main road.  Even so, it has a restaurant. It has started to become very hot during the days with the heat persisting through the night.   It certainly is a lot hotter than we were expecting and is forecast to get hotter still.   Now on our westward headed journey we aim for Ax-les-Thermes which you might rightly conclude is a spa town.   In the late 1800’s and into the twentieth century it was a very popular spot especially with the British who came to ‘take the waters’.   There are multiple springs of varying temperatures bubbling out of the ground and still a variety of spa watering holes to laze in.   There’s a public footbath on the edge of the market with hot water to bathe feet in after a heavy shop.   The water rises at one end, flows through a roughly 50 by 15 feet pool and then disappears.   Quite

  on that lovely site I mentioned Cable cars and ski-lifts often do run outside the ski season and take walkers high into the mountains quickly and effortlessly but it seems that very few of them are running here at the moment.    We have found out though that a rack and pinion railway is running into the mountains from a town called Ribes de Freser where we’ve now chosen to base ourselves for a few days.   A rack and pinion railway has a third central rail which is toothed.   The locomotive has a cog wheel which meshes with the rail and in combination with the normal driving wheels the train hauls itself up steeper inclines than a normal train could.   We were able to walk to the station from our campsite which was fifteen minutes down an ankle-breaking rock strewn path which clearly doubles as a raging mountain torrent when it rains heavily.     and here's that third rail this is only here because it looks vaguely amusing in English After getting our tickets at the statio

    the upper Ampriu Valley We’re moving eastwards along the Pyrenees and so the ancient Kingdom of Navarre has been left behind and we move into Aragon which you will have heard of.   The first Mrs Henry VIII, Catherine (maiden name ‘of Aragon’) was part of the ruling family around here although she was born near Madrid.   Ainsa or at least the old town part of it appeared to be worth a visit and it certainly was.   It’s a steep climb up to a warren of narrow stone flagged streets leading to the main square next to the church and the town just oozes character.   We’re early and the place is virtually deserted but it’s easy to visualise it packed with tourists and having a very different feel to it so we’re glad to see it quiet.    As the cafes open we stop in the main square on the shady side because it might be early but it’s already hot.   Two coffees and two croissants with jam to soak up the atmosphere.   We should do more of this.   Ainsa from the old castle one of the