The Six Month Trip Done and Dusted

 

The spectacular road up to Luz-Ardiden skiing

We left Chez Arran and headed west to the Pyrenees south of Lourdes, an area we visited about six years ago for a brief climbing trip. 

One of us (that would be me) made a slight miscalculation as the whole area was snow-bound, it is peak skiing season!!! We made the most of being up amongst the white stuff with some great walks in spectacular scenery.

The plan had been to head into Spain next but the forecast is cold and unsettled into the foreseeable future so we have decided to cut our losses and head back to the UK via the Santander - Portsmouth ferry.

Glorious conditions at Luz-Ardiden

On the plus side we have booked flights to Cyprus for next weekend at a very fair price of £50 each. It is currently around 20C - that will be a nice change. It sounds like Colin might be interested in coming along too - there could be a plan forming.

Costa Brava Cruising

Cliff top walks - Costa Brava

Chez Arran was full over New Year so we had to move out, plus we have already played the game where the place is full of noisy youths celebrating the end of the year into the wee small hours so we were happy to go.

Originally we thought about westwards towards Lourdes but because of the cool and manky weather we decided to head eastwards and over the border to Spain and the Costa Brava. A great call as it turned out, the weather was gorgeous, up to 20C, there was no one about and we got four days climbing on the granite towers of Solius.

Sunset from our tower block

Granite climbing - Solius

We last visited the area an amazing 16 years ago, back in March 2006 and it was certainly good to be back. We stopped on the seventh (top) floor of a tower block, which meant great views and complete peace in our island in the sky. After eleven lovely days we headed back to Chez Arran and back to typical mountain weather, cold, grey and damp.