Driving me mad

This is my first trip to the Pyrenees and I am very impressed with what I
have seen. We took a drive up the valley we are in to the border post with
France, stunning scenery along the way. The border here was shut and
apparently only opens in June as the pass takes that long to clear. We could
not believe how much building work is going on in the towns and villages.
Most of the old towns seem to have been given a complete facelift, and there
are also plenty of new builds going up and they all look very nice too. Even
the ski areas up towards the border post look new and still being built in
places, there must be plenty of money rolling around the coffers of Spain.
The snow up top is slowly starting to give way to spring, but there was
still enough for parts of the ski areas to be open. We considered hitting
the piste, but didn't fancy injuring ourselves only 2 weeks into a 7 month
trip, so we had a cup of coffee and watched instead.
How far will you walk for a loaf of bread? Yesterday we did about 8km. We
went first up to Gavin the closest village, but no shops. We then
backtracked and went down to Biescas the town just below us, and eventually
after walking a full circle around the town we found the handful of shops
around a corner from where we entered the town. The bread was jolly nice
though.
Today we went for a trek in the Ordesa National Park which is about 25km
east of our site along a very bendy road. The road was very interesting to
drive on with constant left and right hand bends climbing up to a pass at
about 1500m, and a bit daunting with not knowing what was coming around the
next corner as the Spanish seem to cut all corners even on a blind bend.
They seem to have a complete inability to keep a car in between the white
lines on the edge and middle of the road, even on straights. I don't know if
it is just a complete lack of driving ability or whether they all think that
they are Fernando Alonso.
The national park is truly stunning, and includes a huge gorge that cuts its
way out of the Pyrenees. The 3km of road to the car park was a tad bumpy and
pot holed and made for a very noisy ride, I don't think anything fell off
Noddy. Once in the park there is quite a selection of walks to do and we
chose the main one that follows the river back up the gorge. The round trip
would be about 16km including an assault 600m up the side of the gorge.
Strangely enough we gave that bit a miss. Even so we did not quite make it
to the halfway point at the end of the gorge as it was very hard going
uphill all the way, especially the last 3rd where the path was still snow
bound. The turn around point would be at about 3 hours, but we stopped at 2
hours at one of the waterfalls and had a bite to eat and a rest, before
turning back for the long trudge downhill back to the car park. We were
impressed though at the stamina of some old folk we passed who were
strolling along in their Sunday Best and they must have made it at least a
half as far as we did. After a nice cup of coffee back in Noddy we hit the
road back to camp trying not to hit any oncoming traffic along the way.
Tonight is our 4th night at Gavin. We will probably have one more day here
to rest our tired feet and then head off down to Barcelona where we will
stop for 3 nights so that we can take our time over 2 days seeing the city.
Then we will set our sights firmly on Italy and pass along the south coast
of France in a few days.

Lo siento, me he equivocado de número.

Hasta Luego

M&S