Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 3 Broto and Torla (Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park), Spain

After Alquezar we headed further up into the Pyrenees to the small town of Broto in the Aragon region, where we stayed for three nights. Broto and the nearby village of Torla are two of the main places to stay for visiting the western side of the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. 

This was a view taken somewhere along the way.

This map of the National Park shows Torla, just outside of it, and Broto a few kms further south.

I took the picture during a very pleasant walk we took alongside the River Ara to the bridge which is where the red arrow is on the map, then walked back along the road. We were lucky with the weather as there was plenty of sunshine which makes such a difference when you are in the mountains. We were just inside the National Park here, but we didn't have the time to go further into it, and most of the walks inside the park are the kind for fit hikers to do, with refuges to stay in along the way. Too much going uphill for my liking anyway!

Along by the river I spotted this lovely Pyrenean Violet (Ramonda myconi), top left. They grow in shady rocky areas in this part of the Pyrenees. What I discovered about this plant is that it is a resurrection plant, i.e. a plant that can survive extreme drought and then come back to life months or even years later once they receive moisture.

The other plants which were in the open near the bridge are: right, St Bernard's Lily (Anthericum liliago) and bottom left, a pink Rockrose (Helianthemum nummularium).

The River Ara.

Top left: Rock Soapwort (Saponaria ocymoides).
Top right: Nailwort (Paronychia kapela), a creeping plant with tiny leaves and semi translucent white flowers that grows in sunny rocky places.
Bottom: Snapdragons of some sort (Antirrhinum sp.).

Another view from the bridge.

Left: Robust Marsh Orchid (Dactyorhiza elata) - according to PlantNet. It grows in very damp meadows, but also in seepages on roadside banks and verges - which was most probably the case here.
Right: Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea).

This is a Flax of some sort, although PlantNet says 84.5% it is Sticky Flax (Linum viscosum) but the leaves are much narrower. Apple ID also says it is Sticky Flax. It looks far more like Hairy Pink Flax (Linum pubescens) which has similar leaves to my one, yet that is supposed to be around the Eastern Mediterranean. i give up!

The church at Torla with the mountains behind.

Torla was prettier than Broto as it was older and more rustic. Also in the collage are a House Martin and her young in the nest, and the plant is Corsican Stonecrop (Sedum dasyphyllum) growing out of a wall.

I love seeing the different roofing materials! Adore those old stone roof tiles with the Sedums growing in amongst them.

More views in Torla.

Mountains from somewhere near Torla.

Same view from further away, from the bridge in Broto. Damn those annoying electric/phone cables which get in the way of lovely views so often.

The old and the new in Broto: the Romanesque bridge next to a modern one.

Close to the village there is a short walk to a waterfall, the Cascada del Sorrosal. The sun was annoyingly in the way for taking shots of this 120m high waterfall.

Looking back in the other direction from the waterfall. I loved the rock strata that look like steps. Mountain water is always so clear, apart from after heavy rain.

The next post is where we went on day two of our stay in Broto.

Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 2 Alquezar Gorge, Spain

I said our trip got more interesting.... I'd seen some photos of this walk at Alquezar online and thought - "I've got to do that!". This walk was the joint highlight of my holiday, along with a butterfly walk at the very end of the trip. 😀

Alquezar is a beautiful medieval village within the Sierra y Cañones de Guara Natural Park. It looked stunning as we walked past to start our descent down into the Rio Vero gorge. By the time we got to the bottom, my knees were well and truly stuffed. I so wished I had thought about using an alpine stick to help me. You know those stone steps which are really steep? We had them both going down and coming up. K has to help me with the worst ones as my knees just aren't strong anymore, ever since having cancer. And this was a walk marked as easy!

Once at the bottom it was fairly easy after that.

The river Vero came out through this cave but there was very little flow and the river was really shallow at this point.

And then, the excitement began! Yes that was what this walk was all about, taking the metal walkway suspended above the river and gorge bottom. I'm saying, I'm OK here, no vertigo!

For a short bit we went back down again until the main walkway started.

The river got more rocky here.

Can you see K taking a photo of me? More to the point, can you see how far ahead the walkway goes?! Here it was much higher above the gorge bottom than before, but I was still absolutely fine, even when we had to squeeze sideways to get past where the rockface stuck out.

Now you can see the path better - always open up the photo to view larger so you can see the sharper image.

Once we got to the end of the walkway, which included a hanging bridge, there was a lookout point - open the picture up and you'll see the village at the top and the length of the walkway in the middle of the photo.

There was a hell of a climb back up towards the village with K hauling me up the steep rock steps with me probably moaning and complaining by this stage. 😀

Unfortunately we didn't have either the time nor the energy to visit the town properly, other than the bit we walked through to get back to the parking area. But I loved this doorway with a door within it. One day we'll come back and see the town, but I don't think I'll do the gorge walk again!

I think it took about three days for my knees to recover! But I am not really complaining, as it was an absolutely stunning and really fun walk and I love that I can cope with this sort of thing now that I've mostly overcome my fear of heights. Ten years ago I would have said 'never in a million years' at the thought of doing a walk like this!

P.S. I have now done more blog posts this year, so far, than I have in any year since 2016! I'm so glad I have got out of my blog slump. 👍

Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 1 Prats de Mollo, France and over the border to Spain

Now we are going back to June and our trip around the Pyrenees. We didn't have the best of weather when we set off but we did at least see the sun albeit briefly! We avoided the motorway as much as possible and headed to Prats de Mollo near the border with Spain.

Here's a map of our route for the first two days, which was mostly just driving. It's one hell of a long way around the Pyrenees which is why we decided it was necessary to take three weeks.

I saw a few orchids at one of the places we stopped at to look at the views and this is an Early Purple Orchid (Orchis mascula).

This is Prats de Mollo la Preste, close to Spain. It's not the first time we have visited but it's a pretty little place worth having a look at, with a fort up above the town for those who fancy a good workout walking up there. We didn't!

Fort Lagarde showing on the right. It’s yet another fort designed by Vauban, in 1680. In fact, K and I had walked up there years ago, up the underground walled walkway which takes you to near the entrance of the fort, but when we got there, the place was closing! It wasn’t a real big deal, as we have seen so many of Vauban’s strongholds that we knew pretty much what it would have looked like.

The river Tech.

I'm guessing this is a sentry/lookout spot on the old town wall, probably guarding the bridge.

It's only taken my brother about 50 years to start using an umbrella, yes really! I am still amazed every time he gets it out. He used to just wear a hood, or get wet, he was so anti brollies.

Remains of old town fortifications.

This map was interesting showing the French/Spanish border as it has changed over the centuries. The current border is the black one. The little Spanish island in the middle is an enclave called Llivia, which we visited at the end of the journey, so I'll tell you about it then. This is just the eastern end of the Pyrenees.

The following day we had to change our itinerary as we'd planned to visit Nuria, a valley at about 2,000m altitude reached only by a rack railway. As there was low cloud and the temps at Nuria were due to have a high of 12C, we decided to give it a miss and continue on our journey.

We stopped for a short walk beside the Noguera Pallarasa river through the Collegats Gorge, near to La Pobla de Segur.

And here are some pics of us, somewhere. You know how it is when you pull over where there is a view but you never remember where on earth it was. 😀 Keith tells me that's why he uses the GPS on his camera so he always knows where his photos are, but I don't have that function on any of my cameras.

Our trip got a bit more interesting after this. 😀

The Valley du Galbe revisited

I was very interested to see what the Galbe valley would be like later in the summer, and K didn't need much persuading, so we set off up to the mountains on the 9th August. There are a lot of photos in this post so you'd better get yourself a nice cup of something hot or a glass of something cold, and sit down to scroll through!

We had been hoping there would be some Apollo butterflies around, but it was not to be. Never mind, it was still as exciting up here as it had been seven weeks earlier.

The first thing we noticed were all the people around! I really hadn't expected that many, but by the time we got to the car park (down a long unpaved road from the hamlet where we engaged 4 wheel drive - it reminded me of driving in Fiji!) and started out on the walk, other people became a bit more sparse and didn't stop me from taking photos of butterflies etc, thank goodness!

Despite having dried out somewhat, there were still plenty of different wildflowers about. In the sun the vast majority were Knapweed and Scabious - always good for attracting butterflies and pollinators.

Below on the left is a really attractive Pink - Dianthus hyssopifolius or the Montpelier Pink. In the other pictures are Knapweed and Achillea, but with a pink variety as well as the white, which was rather pretty.

The patch above was a little field that hadn't been cut for hay, and was alive not just with the wildflowers but also Skippers. I saw Small Skippers and Essex Skippers, and even this mating pair on a Knapweed stem, which I think were Essex Skippers (Thymelicus lineola) but it is hard to tell.

In this picture I believe the top photo is a Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) (red tip to antennae) and the images below is of an Essex Skipper (black on underneath of tip of antennae and a bit more black around the outside of the upper wings).

However I have no clue what this interesting moth is! I saw a couple of them, buried into flowers.

Despite some of the grass having been grazed, there were still plenty of wildflowers and Fritillaries galore flying about. The one below I think is a Knapweed Fritillary (Melitaea phoebe).

This was the best picture I could get of this Queen of Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia).

Sometimes you just can't help getting an annoying blade of grass in the way; where butterflies are concerned you just have to put up with it in many instances if you don't want them to fly away! This is a Dark Green Fritillary (Speyeria aglaja) which I have only seen once before in the Eyne Valley, which is not too far away from here.

And this is a lifer! The High Brown Fritillary (Fabriciana adippe). Now what was I saying about annoying blades of grass - or stems - in the way?! 😀

When we went past the refuge that I showed in my June post, we noticed people coming out so decided to have a look inside, as we have never been in one before. It was quite cosy - room for about 10 people with two tables, a double bed in a nook and four double sized bunks with single mattresses (didn't like the look of them very much), so plenty of room for people to spread out. There was a pot belly stove indoors for the winter with dry firewood and some kitchen equipment and some food basics in a little pantry cupboard. I didn't see a tap but there must have been water somewhere and as for toilet, no idea, a convenient bush I expect! There were already some large backpacks dumped in there by I imagine people off to do a walk and then come back later. (We also saw quite a few people with serious backpacks walking along the path as it leads to higher up and more mountain refuges further on). Outside was a large fireplace/bbq for summer cooking. If you have a sleeping bag and can avoid putting your head or body directly on the mattress then I am sure it is perfectly comfy and cosy if you are into long mountain hikes. I'll stick to my own bed or the moho, though, thanks very much! 😀

As far as blues went, it was all about this silvery blue one - the Chalkhill Blue (Lysandra coridon)! Another lifer for me. I've seen the Provence Chalkhill Blue which was flying at a time when the Chalkhill doesn't, otherwise it can be very difficult for the layman to tell the difference, other than the Provence tends to be greyer and the Chalkhill a bit more blue. So I am calling these ones Chalkhills! (I have lots of photos, I'm not just trying to ID from one photo.)

I found a bunch of butterflies puddling on mud near the stream. Nearly all are Chalkhill Blues plus either a Small White or Green Veined White (hard to tell), but when I looked closer at my photos I spotted a Long-tailed Blue (Lampides boeticus) in the top left corner. You will need to click to view larger and what you are seeing is a butterfly with wings closed with a dark coloured underwing with a white vertical line. However I can zoom in and I've seen the identifying spots and markings. I have this at home and they are very much attracted to pea family plants, not just to lay eggs on but also to nectar on. They can actually be a pest in some places. There are actually six butterflies in this picture.

Back near the car park is the picnic area in the shade beside the stream. I was amazed to see lots of white Astrantia major flowering, as I'm used to it as a garden plant. With it is this pretty wild Lettuce (Latuca sp.) and the pink flower - see below. Also lots of the Dianthus hyssopifolius was flowering in the heavy shade too and didn't seem to mind sun or shade.

The pink flower looked just like Scabious to me, but the leaves were completely different. After a bit of research I have learned that it is the related Knautia dipsacifolia. On the left is Aconitum sp., commonly known as Monkshood or Wolfsbane, amongst other names.

We then drove back to the tiny village of Espousouille to where we had walked beside the wildflower meadows seven weeks earlier. As I had expected, they had been cut for hay. A bit surprising really as there were more flowers than grass in some places earlier! There were still wildflowers growing along the edges of the road (this is not the road we drove on! This is a new, lovely flat road which leads to the car park but only for walking on, it seems. Makes no sense at all!). We walked a little way but it was really getting hot and there was no shade, so we returned to have a look at the little stream, near where we had parked.

Well the stream was certainly a lot calmer than it had been in mid June!

Looking in the other direction.

We then decided to return to the village of Railleu where we had gone in June as I seem to recall Apollos had been seen there the year before. Still none! We had a nice scenic drive there though as our satnav decided to take us on a very long way round to the village, but I didn't mind, despite K grumbling all the way. 😁

A lot of butterflies were flitting through the village but mostly too fast to ID them, until we came to a Buddleia growing in an overgrown garden which was alive with butterflies! Below is another Dark Green Fritillary, and there were also lots of Silver Washed Fritillaries which I hadn't seen in the valley of Galbe (though seen plenty of them before). Too fast for photos though! I also saw a Jersey Tiger Moth.

The highlight though was this Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris - what??? how the hell do you pronounce that!!!) taking a break on a windowsill! I expect K got some nice photos with his camera and fancy lens, but I am more than happy with my own photo, as it was pretty close!

On the way back home we stopped beside the area where we had seen the Red Backed Shrike in June as the stony banks looked interesting with wildflowers and some butterflies flitting. These Pinks appealed to me as they were such a splash of pink here and there as we were driving past. They are Dianthus balbisii and grow in hot and dry places. Although I didn't get any more decent photos I saw here Meadow Brown, Clouded Yellow, Marbled White and a Glanville Fritillary, taking my Fritillary tally for the day to six, which is not bad!

All in all just as interesting here in summer as spring.