Haute-Pyrénées: Medieval Villages and Mountain Downtime

Haute-Pyrénées: Medieval Villages and Mountain Downtime

now. And behind us are these incredible mountains. Spin around and see right there as well. And we’re going to go um hike that later. Right. No. Again, that’s the wrong harness. You brought the wrong harness. Subscribe to our channel for more Zeke and Terry adventures. Well, we are in Narbun. We are about ready to start a 1 week of our 7we European adventure, but this time we’re going to focus on the Pyrenees. So, we’re going to drive from Narbon to some place in the mountains. Uh I think the the hotel we’re staying at is Lrange O Marmmont, like little furry creatures. Uh, and we are with our youngest and we are looking for serenity and downtime and medieval architecture and abbies and laundry. Laundry. We need to do laundry. So, real bed and big full shower. Oh my gosh. We actually have a bathtub in our bathroom. So, I think I’m going to have to go find myself a pharmacy and get me some bubble bath. On the road again. But I think that’s a temperature sensor. Well, it looks like it’s a temperature sensor that keeps going off and the gas pedal is not responding. So, we are headed back to Alamo. Hopefully, the guy is there so that we can get a different car. Terry’s now going for a test drive to show him what’s wrong with the car. I’ve never seen this happen with a car before. Too much technology, I think. All right, Terry. What was the problem? Somehow some sort of adaptive cruise control was turned on and it was limiting uh to 30 mph. So, oh boy. Or 30 km per hour. But we want to go more than 30 km an hour. So this is one of the few churches where they’ve built houses right up to the wall of the church. That’s this side over here. And this is some house. And I’m walking down the space between the two and I’m going to see. And I’m not a very broad shouldered guy. I can almost touch both sides all the way down. That’s kind of cool. Once again, the best laid plans need to be changed. So, we had a actually a really good lunch in Lacrosse, which apparently it’s one of the prettiest villages in France. Lovely vegetarian lunch. We went to a place that um you either had the dish or the dish with chicken and that was it. It was good. Um, but otherwise I think you’re supposed to be in the middle. But this is also the bike lane. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Well, it’s Sunday morning. Uh, Saturday flew by but went very very slowly all at the same time as we made our way from Lamay to Norbone. Got the car issue resolved and then uh got on the road with a quick stop in Lacrosse for lunch and we stumbled or meandered into this incredible cave. And it turns out there’s a lot of these caves but this one was enormous. We drove through the cave and there’s even more uh cave that you can pay a ticket to go walk around in. We didn’t have time for that. Um, and then a huge waterfall at the other side which was just an incredible. Yeah. No, that was that was an incredible find. We hit torrential rain which got super super scary as we got higher above the river and it was like the sheer drop down but absolutely gorgeous even though it was um totally rainy and foggy as we made our way up the serpentine road to where we are tonight which is the hotel and restaurant um Lrange O Marmmont. Hopefully I get to take a lovely bath in this great bathtub. Um, and you might be able to hear behind us. Um, they’re just sheep with bells around their neck that are just grazing up here. Apparently the Pyrenees, they have this whole, what is it? Transhumints, where, um, in the summer they move all the animals up to high ground where it’s cooler, and then in the winter they move them down. So, we’re going to spend the day sort of, uh, resetting ourselves, getting some laundry done, taking a bath, some photos to organize, and some stretching to do. Uh, and then we’ll be here one more night before we launch off to Sebastian tomorrow. So, we’re going to go get some breakfast and then we’ll go from there. But the most important thing to remember everyone is that it is Sunday morning and in France it’s not Mother’s Day. That’s in another two weeks. But in the United States, it is Mother’s Day. So, happy Mother’s Day. You get two Mother’s Days. Oh, great. Since you forgot about it. Heat. Heat. We’re staying in this community of Vascos, I believe is how you pronounce it. And I can’t quite tell what part of it is hotel and what part of it is just some neighbor’s house. It’s just a bunch of little houses built into the side of a hill. It’s pretty impressive. It’s interesting to see how these old villages have developed. I believe this is where they used to do wash. You’ve got sort of a sloped uh piece of rock there and water was in there. I’ve seen that in other places. This one here maybe was just drinking water, some sort of a well or reservoir that you could do. And this one over here is where you sort your plastics and and glass. We climbed up to the Redmonds of Chateau Samurray which uh looks like dates back to 1180 so the 12th century overlooking this lovely valley and behind us are these incredible mountains spinning spin around and see right there as well. And we’re going to go um hike that later. Right. No. Again, that’s the wrong harness. You brought the wrong harness. Now we are going to go Where are we going now? We are going to the uh igliss de templier complier or nights of Templar. We met uh a couple from New Jersey, Dave and Stacy. If you’re watching this, lovely to meet you. Hope the rest of your trip was good and you had an easy trip back to New Jersey. We made our way to Coter to have some lunch. Uh this is where you and Theodore did laundry yesterday. Yep. Quick trip yesterday to get uh chores checked off and then we came back today. The little town is quite cute, but the drive over is also as impressive. Yeah. And I’m glad it was impressive because we got here and we are obviously here during shoulder season or off season. Uh we had to walk around for about 20 minutes to find a restaurant that was open and it was like at 12:30. So we’re talking right in the middle of lunch hour. There’s a Notream church here. Um, thermal baths. Uh, it’s really, it really is quite charming. I imagine it’d be a complete zoo during the peak months. Uh, during ski season and then also during summer season. Uh, we saw a lot of camping options and um, ski options, etc. As you said, the gondola wasn’t working yesterday. Middle of June, it’ll start working. But this is uh, this is pretty cute. Yeah. But um Theodore and I were practicing our Spanish at lunch because we are moving we are closing out our mountain portion of our trip and we are moving into our beach portion. This is kind of end of France for us. Not a not a bad place to end it. Okay. And for you we’ll see you next week in San Sebastian.

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After a week on canal boats, we traded waterways for mountain roads in France’s stunning Haute-Pyrénées! 🏔️🚗

Our peaceful mountain escape included:
🚗 CAR RENTAL DRAMA:
–Speed control mystery solved!
–Scenic backroads journey to the Pyrénées

🏘️ CHARMING DISCOVERIES:
–Lagrasse’s medieval streets & 14th-century Église Saint-Michel
–Vegetarian lunch at Moksi: only 2 choices: with or without chicken
–Local artisan shopping finds
–The incredible Grotte du Mas d’Azil (you can literally drive through it!)

🏔️ VISCOS MOUNTAIN RETREAT:
Hotel & Restaurant La Grange aux Marmottes…the only restaurant in town
Waking to sheep sounds on Mother’s Day morning 🐑
Much-needed downtime after boat life
Exploring 12th-century Église Saint-Pierre
Laundry day in Cauterets!

⛰️ PYRÉNÉES EXPLORATION:
–Château Saint-Marie in Esterre
–Stumbling into a local market in Luz-Saint-Saveur
–Église de Templiers (sadly it’s not related to the Knights of the Templar)
–Quiet shoulder season vibes in Cauterets

After the intensity of canal boat life, these peaceful mountain days were exactly what we needed before continuing to Spain!

Next up: San Sebastian!

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🚁Navigating our lives and the world together. 🚁

Video and images by Zeke and Terri from our iPhones
Video editing by Zeke using Finalcut Pro
Music from Epidemic Sound

00:00 Into the mountains!
01:09 The drive begins… or does it?
02:01 Lagrasse
04:21 Viscos
05:11 Gigantic caves and waterfalls
06:02 Sheep!
06:37 Happy 1st Mother’s Day!
08:44 Old castle on a hill with a view
09:54 End in Cauterets

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