Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 9 Luz St Sauveur, the Col de Tourmalet and Aran Park

We then drove a fair old way to Luz St Sauveur which is about halfway along the Pyrenees. The town wasn't anything special, just fairly typical of one close to the mountains with the usual sports shops and ski hire places, and we walked through it on a circular route from our camp site.

Above and below a small stream, le Bastan, coming from the town, rushing a bit faster than usual due to rainfall. In the photo below if you open it up you can just see a castle in the middle of the picture.

During our walk we passed this lovely church, Notre Dame de l'Assomption, which was in a hamlet outside of Luz called Sassis. The church dates from the 13th century, though the bells were made in the late 19th century and the porch added in the 1920s.

The main river called the Gave de Gavarnie just outside the town was very full! Mountain rivers seem to turn this milky grey colour after a lot of rain.

The following maps show our route on these next few days of our journey. The first goes from St Jean Pied de Port to Luz St Sauveur and just beyond. However, I can't show the entire route on one map because the next stop which is a mountain pass, is closed at the moment, so you cannot force the map to show it as a route! The Col de Tourmalet is shown in pink on the right below and on the left in the map below that. You can see the info better if you click on the map.

This shows from La Mongie, a ski resort just along the road from the Col to our next destination, Aran Park, which is back in Spain again.

We then drove up into the mountains to the Col de Tourmalet (2,115m) which we have driven over before. It's a popular route for cyclists as it is used for the Tour de France regularly, so the road is in very good condition because of that.

These pink flowers which are orchids caught my eye from further away, which brought me over to take a look. It's a very lovely, poignant memorial for people who have, or who have died from, cancer, which is left annually by a Dutch cycling team.

If you click on the photo below you can read more about it - it's just one para written in a number of different languages.

I was so disappointed during this holiday up on most of the high points that we went to because they had all been grazed, so hardly any flowers remained. Occasionally I would find a few sheltered by some rocks or on a steep bit that cows/horses couldn't get to, like these few plants here.

Bottom left is Alpine Chickweed (Cerastium alpinum) and in the other photos are Alpine Clover (Trifolium alpinum), the pink flowers, and what I think is Spring Gentian (Gentiana verna) which are the lovely blue flowers. It is definitely a Gentian even if it is not the Spring one.

A Wall Lizard (Podarcis Muralis) which has lost the end of its tail, which is regrowing as a grey stump.

Looking down at the ski resort of La Mongie from the Col. We had hoped to go up to the Pic du Midi which is an observatory at over 3,000m altitude which you take two cable cars up to, but looking at the live webcam, there was nothing to see but cloud up there. At least K and I have been up there before.

The same thing happened to us in the Basque country where there is a 900m high hill which has a rack railway up it, which on a clear day has amazing views over the countryside, mountains and the coast. We arrived at the station but thankfully before buying tickets, a lady working there pointed us to the webcam and all we saw was white! It's pointless paying good money to go up somewhere with no views. It's also very disappointing.

Coming down the other side of the Col in the direction of Spain.

The following day we headed to Aran Park, a wildlife park with mostly Pyrenean species, just over the border.

Apart from being cold and drizzly, it was a really enjoyable experience. Set on the side of a mountain, many of the animals are kept in really large areas on the mountainside that they can roam in. We walk inside their enclosures. Other small animals are in much smaller enclosures, but in most cases, are suited to their sizes.

The Griffon Vultures below were unable to fly due to injury from flying into overhead electricity cables/pylons, but they seemed content and were able to hop up on these perches. The deer I think is a Red Deer, and the cute animals are Otters.

I loved the mountainside so covered in moss with tree roots very visible growing over and around the rocks.

Top we have Ibex, which are wild goats, below left is an Isard or Chamois, a goat-antelope, and on the left is a Marmot.

Some Pyrenean mountain species have been hunted to extinction or near extinction and have been reintroduced from other parts of Europe (wolves, brown bear, some vulture species), or in the case of the Pyrenean Ibex which is sadly extinct, several sub-species exist in parts of Spain so these were used for the reintroductions. 

A Brown Bear which was rather cute when it lay down for a snooze and the anomaly on the right is a Prairie Dog from America, which is a kind of ground squirrel, like marmots. (Edited with thanks to Marianne for telling me what it was called). Why they have them in the park (as well as American Red Squirrels) I have no idea. Children were allowed to feed the Prairie Dogs and the Marmots under the supervision of a staff member, so they were rather tame - so maybe they are a part of the attraction for children?

And then my camera battery died, and my spare battery was also dead. In future I will check my spare batteries are fully charged! So the rest of my photos were taken on my phone, and are not worth sharing which is a shame as there were a number of species of wolf, but they were distant.

This was taken somewhere on our way to Andorra, which was our next destination. A new European country tick for us all!

Indoor orchids, a fallen tree and local birding

Back to what's been happening at home recently - well not a huge amount really! But I have been having some luck with my houseplants flowering. This first picture is a Mother in Law's Tongue (Dracaena trifasciata or Sansevieria trifasciata) which is having its second flower spike this year. The first was when we were away in June and I got our housesitter to send us some photos. I should have used one of her pictures, because every time I went to take a photo, the flowers had gone over. Eventually I figured it must be nocturnal and the flowers were only open in the morning. But by the time I remembered to take a photo first thing in the morning, the flowers had all finished! So here are some spent flowers and some buds at the top..... 😀

Onto the orchids - I am SO excited to discover a flowering shoot on my Cymbidium! I thought it was just a new leaf bud at first. I brought this plant home from my mum's house after she died and I remember it flowering prolifically for her (she had amazingly green fingers with her house plants and they all flowered for her). I remember way back she had it in the garden during the summer as well. Now I've bothered to read up about them I understand they like the difference in temperature between night and day in summer which helps to encourage flowering in the autumn/winter. I did that a few years ago and no flowers, this year I didn't do anything special and hey presto! I can't remember what colour the flowers are so it will be a nice surprise.

These photos aren't great as I'm taking them indoors but they will have to do as I don't like using flash. Below is my Dendrobium (commonly known here as 'the Purple Orchid') with three more flower buds after it has just finished flowering. My brother outdoes me every time though; he has the original plant (and two more taken from it) and says his has ten flowering shoots on his main one and some on the other smaller plants as well. I'm going to divide this one up in the spring, when I repot all my orchids and hopefully that will give it a boost.

I have a tip if you have any Phalaenopsises. Don't cut back the flower stalks when they have finished flowering unless they turn brown and dry out. On this plant which was bought with about four flowering stalks they just stayed green so I left them. I could see there were what looked like dormant buds on the end of some of the stalks and also on some of the side shoots from those stalks. 

Well I have discovered that they sometimes come back to life and provide you with more flowers! I had a whole new flowering shoot come out of one of these old stalks earlier this year, and you can see in the collage below (bottom right) how a shoot has suddenly come to life and grown a bit more with one bud on the end! On the left you can just about see a dried out looking dormant bud/shoot, and top right is another dormant bud/shoot which I think may be coming to life - time will tell. 

We had a conifer in the back garden which died a couple of years ago and we had been vaguely thinking of cutting it down, as you do. Well, after a windy night we were lucky that we were saved some work, and REALLY lucky that it missed the moho by about a foot! It's not a huge tree but had it fallen at a different angle it could have done some damage or at the very least, caused some nasty scratches. Phew!

The silvery thing is a tyre protector which had blown off, not rubbish!

We recently went to a social get together with Birding Languedoc and one of the guys we know, who lives about half an hour away from us near where some Black Winged Kites (Elanus caeruleus) live, mentioned that he had seen some near our village that morning! 

A few days later we went to check out the place at the end of the afternoon towards roosting time, and sure enough, we saw two! We returned again the next day, a bit earlier and saw three of them. It's so exciting to have them so close to home - maybe one day they will be flying over our house and can be added to our home bird list. By the way did I tell you that we had a Griffon Vulture fly over our house twice this summer? We are quite a way from the mountains and their kind of rocky habitat, so they must have been out on a distant hunting trip. Exciting times!

You can just about see the red eye in this picture below. They really are stunning birds. They seem to be spreading throughout France yet a few decades ago were mostly only seen on the Iberian peninsula. They hunt over agricultural areas and can be seen hovering like Kestrels. I'd never even heard of them before moving here.

A female Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) who just stood in the road posing nicely for us.

A Buzzard (Buteo buteo).

There was also a large flock of Lapwings beyond where the Buzzard is which is the first time I've seen any inland since we left Brittany, where they were always around in the fields in winter.

Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 8 St Jean Pied de Port, Basque Country

A bit further inland and closer to the mountains is St Jean Pied de Port, on one of the major pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela in north west Spain. Our own village is on the Chemin de Piemont Pyreneen (not shown on map) which links up with the main inland route in Spain.

Taken from the internet and I can't remember whose picture it is to credit, so apologies if it is yours.

One of my cousins from New Zealand came over to do this route from St Jean P de P about six or seven years ago. He enjoyed his experience apart from the period he spent in hospital with Legionnaires' Disease which he picked up from one of the hostels!!! Thankfully he recovered fine and was able to continue on his journey and finish the pilgrimage. It's certainly tough starting from France as you have the hike over the Pyrenees to contend with first, when you are not necessarily at your fittest! Rather him than me. 😀

Me beside the River Nive. We are still in the Basque country here though I think towards the edge of it. This lovely town was classified as one of the 'Most Beautiful Villages in France' in 2016.

You can open up this pic to read some info about the history of the pilgrim route of Saint Jacques de Compostelle, as it is called in French.

Rue de la Citadelle is the main street in the old part of town which leads to a citadelle at the top - K and I have visited in the past but we didn't on this day.

There are some gorgeous old houses on this road; this one is engraved with the name of the couple who I imagine built (or had built) the house, in 1720.

This house is dated 1510.

I remember this house from before, but because the streets are so narrow you can't stand back far enough to get it all in one photo, as I wanted to cover as many of the plants as possible.

Finally, a view from the top of the town. Yet more dismal weather! Still, it was lovely to see everywhere looking so green and lush.

Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 7 St Jean de Luz and Espelette, Basque Country

St Jean de Luz
Just along the coast from Hendaye is the pretty town of St Jean de Luz. We've been here several times before but it's still lovely to be back in the Basque country, plus I wanted my brother to see it.

There's a lovely beach here, but with such gloomy weather it's not surprising it was so empty! It seemed like most days of our holiday, the weather changed.

I remember this building from before as it's so unusual. I had to crop it like this as there were motorbikes all parked up messily but it's on the junction of two streets and is quite narrow at this end as it is a wedge shaped building. The side you can see is sea facing so I bet the apartments would be rather expensive!

There were many pedestrianised streets full of shops. I really enjoy having a browse through places like this, looking in the shop windows. We do buy some tourist stuff as well as I like getting an occasional fridge magnet or mug or something from our travels. Also Keith looks at hats and I look at handbags. 😀

A cookie shop!

Now do you understand why I love the Basque architecture? Most houses have these wooden decorations on the facades, most are this red colour but some are green, which with white are the colours of the Basque flag.

This colour is actually called Basque Red when it comes to paint.

Espelette
In the afternoon we went to Espelette, a village which is the centre of the Basque chilli growing region. Many houses are decorated with strings of the chillies, like this hotel in the centre of town.

You can see the chillies better on this building. Basque chillies are not very hot and are used as a table condiment in place of black pepper, as well as in cooking. Dried chilli powder is expensive and so are the seeds. When we were in Brittany I tried growing them but I had a failure - they never ripened and were not hot at all (so I ended up stuffing them like Jalapeno poppers which was yummy but time consuming). And one plant had completely different shaped chillies!

Whilst there we coincided with several coach loads of tourists. K and I spent a week here many years ago at a friend's holiday home, but it was October and wasn't too busy then, also I recall us having fantastic sunny weather, not like this gloom.

The church, Saint-Etienne, built in 1627.

We weren't here at the right time for a meal which was a shame, as all the restaurants in the little town serve Basque cuisine, which is quite nice. I did buy lots of gateau Basque from the supermarket though! It's delicious but not so easy to come across in other parts of France. They are either stuffed with a sweet creamy stuff or black cherry jam - another thing produced in this region and sold in all the tourist shops.

It rains a lot in this part of France and is lovely and green, and is also quite mild during winter. When we first came here I loved it so much I wanted to move here, but then I looked at the price of the properties (the ones with pretty facades) and had to forget that. They are very expensive! We did better where we eventually moved to - we still have Spain, the coast and the mountains nearby, plus not too cold winters, but much cheaper houses. 👍