Pau Pyrenees and Barbastro

Lazy start to the day, we packed everything away, had a shower, and we were off to Pau, I was mucking about, when leaving the campsite, and took a ride on the trailer at the back, thought I was 15 again!! Geoff went over a hump, I was flung off, hitting the bottom of the trailer that had been shortened, and I grazed my knee, bruised my tummy badly, and hurt my arm, what with my leg already hurting from the bike fall, not doing too well. Glad Geoff

Pau, a view of old Town's outside wall

and Tom had filed the rough edges of the channels, it could have been a lot worse!!

We stopped on route so that we could watch the qualifying in the ‘Monaco Grand Prix’ we had lunch whilst we were there, then onto Pau, we were parked in the centre of the town, in a huge car park, which the end part was allocated for Motor homes.  Not the best of stops, but it allows us to see another town, before going over the Pyrenees.

The old Duke's Palace now a museam

We strolled around the old town, it was full of history, Henry 1V (French), was mentioned a lot, but as we could not find anything to read, we will never know, perhaps an internet job later. The town is very pretty, with lots of old buildings, Chateau and many interesting arches and statues, they have a

Pau old town square

lovely square, with everyone sitting and enjoying eating and drinking, so naturally we joined in too, after a couple of wines, we made our way back, saying we would return tomorrow, for an evening meal, we watched TV, we started watching the Eurovision Song Contest, but soon got fed up with that, and played crib.

Rugby hooligans who woke me up!

At about 6am, we were woken with an awful noise, there were air horns going, and cow bells, we looked out of the window, to see lots of people just milling around, first of all we thought it was a market, but the noise just got louder and louder, Geoff got up and took the dogs for a walk, and to get croissants, I made the coffee and tea.  About thirty coaches arrived, and just blocked the surrounding roads and car park, it was fascinating, eventually things seem to settle, and by 9am everything returned to normality.

The reason for such commotion was rugby final in Bordeaux, between Pau and Mont-De-Marsan, not sure what the result was, but I know I did not want to be around, when they came back, so after breakfast we left for Lescar, which was five miles up the road. Lescar is

Lescar village

a tiny pretty village with very narrow one way streets, Geoff went to go down a road, with a low bridge, I pointed out that

Gate into the old town

‘Rosie’ was taller than the bridge, so we had to back up this hill, and change direction, we decided to exit the village as quickly as we had arrived, we eventually found the Aires we were looking for, just outside the village, it is lovely here, very quiet, another cemetery car park.

We had lunch, and watched the ‘Grand Prix’, disappointed with Hamilton; still at least he got some points, what is happening to Button, think he is getting too old!! Still, glad Schumacher didn’t finish, can’t stand him. A little known fact is that the first race to be called a ‘Grand Prix’ was held in Pau in 1901.

Lascar village

Bishop's Palace

We walked into the village, which had a little stream, and was as pretty as we had first thought, but it had the biggest church I have ever seen, it was the ‘bishops palace’ and was built in the 1100, apparently there had been a church there since 507 AD.

Lascar village

Early night, then up and away by 9.15am, we had decided to

The Pyerenees

ignore when tom tom went into tiny villages, and keep to the National route, we did ok, heading for Huesca, then Barbastro. The route was very pretty, if not a bit scary at times, the views were amazing, the rivers were crystal clear, and we saw the water

Reservoir in Pyerenees

flowing from the top of the rocks, amazing, and ‘Rosie’ coped very well. Geoff drove all the way; I have not yet driven, although I might now we are in Spain.

Pyerenees

We found our site, and it is very good, it is on different levels, and we can see the Lake from our pitch, we

Campsite view

have decided to stay here for five nights and just relax, and look at the area, and maybe using the pool.