walking with the French group in Cauteret in the Pyrenees.

Met up with the Chalais walking group at Cauterets in the Midi Pyrenees, staying at the Hotel Edelweiss. Parking bit of a problem in this old fashioned town with its Belle Époque style architecture. A real change from our previous cardboard mountain town, this has a real spirit with a centre full of character.

 

The fierce owner on the front desk is a real matriarch. The bedroom has a list as long as your arm of do’s and don’ts, well one do and the rest are don’ts, but the room was spotlessly clean, and when you consider we are only paying around €200 for four nights dinner bed and breakfast, plus a packed lunch you cant begrudge her a few eccentricities. 

Day one and we are all head off for our fist walk upto the Lac du Paradis from Pont d Espagne.

Half way up we split into two groups. I stayed with Judith and went with the smaller group led by John. This took us up to the refuge where we had our lunch followed by coffee prepared by leader, laced with a little brandy along with a canard. Not a piece of duck, but a sugar cube dunked in brandy. Normally l would not drink cognac, but in coffee and soaked into a cube of sugar. Wow. Gives you new legs.

 

The other group headed off to the higher walk and was supposed to meet up with us at the refuge. Didn’t happen. They didn’t get back to the hotel until two hours after us. There leader had rushed on with Henri, our aging sprinter. Others were left to find their own way down. Then Henri had a bad fall. All in all not very satisfactory.

In complete comparison, we had a glorious walk back down to the falls. saw a dipper happily ducking his head into the rushing stream along with a pair of fly fisherman working their way down. Even saw one of them catch a fish(not that big). Then we capped our trip with a refreshing beer before driving back to the Town.