Part 10

The first village in this plain is Antichan, thence several long windings take one down to Frontignan below, and thence it is a straight road through Fronsac to Chaum where there is a bridge over the river, and where the plain of which I have spoken terminates in a narrow gateway through the hills. You cross the river by this bridge, fall at once into the great national road upon the further or left bank, and a straight run of not more than 12 miles in which one only rises 300 or 400 feet up the tributary valley brings one to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Though at the end of an even shorter day than was Ax from Perpignan, Bagnères will make a convenient stopping-place after a good deal of hill climbing and roads the surface of which, especially in the early summer, is occasionally doubtful. Bagnères has, of course, everything that people motoring can want, it is the capital of the touring Pyrenees, and even if this cross journey has not proved enough for one day, the character of Bagnères makes it the right place to stop at on the second day.

Though Bagnères is right in the middle of the mountains, but a mile or two from the frontier of Spain, not 6 miles, as the crow flies, from the watershed and within ten of the highest peaks of the Pyrenees, yet the importance of the town has caused good communications to spring up around it, and there is an excellent road crossing straight over from the high valley of Bagnères into the next high valley, the Val d’Aure. It starts at the market-place just opposite the new church, crosses the col called “Port-de-Peyredsourde,” and comes down into the main road of the Val d’Aure at Avajan, which follows down the stream at an even gradient to Arreau, 7 miles further on.

Arreau is the capital of the Val d’Aure, and when you have reached it you will have come about 20 miles from Bagnères.

The next parallel valley to the Val d’Aure is that of the Gave-de-Pau: the valley which has at its mouth the town of Lourdes, and at its head, right under the Spanish frontier, the famous village and cliff of Gavarnie. There is, indeed, a small subsidiary valley in between where the Adour takes its rise, and of which Bagnères-de-Bigorre is the capital, but it is shorter and stands lower than the two main valleys upon either side. The section I am about to describe, the great new road from the Val d’Aure to the Valley of Lourdes, just touches this upper valley of the Adour but does not pursue it.

The cross road from Arreau in the Val d’Aure to Luz in the valley of Lourdes is the steepest and the most diverse in gradient, as it is also by far the finest in scenery, of all the new sections which have recently been pierced through the highest parts of the range and between them build up what I have called “The Upper Road.” The distance as the crow flies from Arreau to Luz is not 20 miles, but the long windings of the road which take it over two passes, and the northern diversion necessary to turn the great mountain mass of the Port Bieil, lengthen it to nearly double that distance.

There is no mistaking this road. It branches off at Arreau, leaving the valley road not half a mile beyond the bridge and going to the left up a little side stream, the name of which I do not know. Within 2 miles it crosses this stream and begins to take the long complicated and graded turns up the mountain. One must be careful, by the way, at the point where the road crosses the stream to turn sharp to the right and not go straight on towards Aspin, for though one can get to the main road again from Aspin, it is by roads too steep for a motor. If one so turns to the right, the road goes up to the col in great zigzags and climbs in some 6 or 7 miles the 2000 feet between Arreau and the summit, thence it falls rapidly for 3 or 4 miles to a point where the new road cuts off the corner the old road used to make. It is important to recognize this point, not only because it saves one at least 6 or 7 miles of travelling, but also because it saves one going right down into the valley of the Adour and climbing up again. I will therefore attempt to fix for the traveller the exact place where he must turn off to the left, though the description is difficult on account of the absence of any landmark.

As you come down from the Col d’Aspin, you run through a wood along the mountain side for perhaps 2 miles. The road sweeps round the curve of a gulley on emerging from this wood, crosses the rivulet of that gulley, and comes down close to the stream at the foot of the valley which is the source of the Adour. Just at this point a road will be seen coming in from the left, descending the slope of the valley beyond the stream and crossing it by a bridge. This is _not the road_ you are to take. You must continue on the same road you have been following down from the pass, until, in about half a mile, it crosses the stream to the left bank, and approaches on that bank a wood that lies above one on the hill. Immediately after this bridge there is a bifurcation; one branch goes straight on, the other goes off to the left; this last is the one you must follow. The branch going straight on is the old road which leads down the valley of the Adour, and from which one used to have to double back some miles on at an acute angle to reach Luz. The new road, which you must thus take to the left, cuts off that angle.

There are no difficulties from this point onward. The road winds a good deal round the hill-side, and almost exactly 5 miles from the point where you turned into it you come again upon the main road to Luz over a bridge that crosses a stream. Just where you join that main road it begins its long climb up to the pass called Col du Tourmalet.

This pass is the highest and steepest on the secondary or lateral passes, over which the new roads have recently been driven. It is just under 7000 feet in height, is everywhere practicable, and once it is surmounted there is a clear run down of some 10 miles and more (following the valley called locally that of the Bastan) to Vielle and to Luz in the main valley.

Of all the crossings between the high valleys of the Pyrenees this is the one best worth taking. The height of the pass, the great mass of the Port Bieil dominating one side of the road, and of the Pic-du-Midi dominating the other, give it an aspect different from any other of the secondary roads, and comparable only to the two main passes of the Somport and the Val d’Ossau.

From Luz a great national road takes one down the valley to Argelès and the railway, a distance of about 18 miles, and the end of about as fine a piece of engineering as there is in Europe. From Argelès, which is just above Lourdes and whence Lourdes can be reached at once by road or by rail, the cross road which I am describing goes on over another high pass into the Val d’Ossau.

The motorist must decide whether to make Argelès his stopping-place or not. In distance from Bagnères he will have gone no more than somewhat over 70 miles, and that is a short day; but it is a day that will have included a great deal of climbing and of sharp descents, and that will have had at the end of it one of the highest passes in the Pyrenees. If he does not choose to stop at Argelès, he will find in Eaux Bonnes above the Val d’Ossau, rather more than 20 miles on (but over a high pass), a very wealthy little modern town, like Bagnères on a lesser scale, with everything that he or his machine can want; and only an hour or an hour and a half beyond Eaux Bonnes, by one of the great national roads and along the lowlands, is Pau.

This cross road from Argelès and the valley of Lourdes, into the Val d’Ossau runs as follows. You take at Argelès the road for Aucun, a village about 5 miles off, up a lateral valley, during which 5 miles you climb over 1200 feet.

From Aucun, still climbing, the road passes Marsous, winds up the hill-side away from the stream, and reaches the first pass, the Col de Soulor, thence it makes round the head waters of the Ouzan valley and round the flank of a bare hill called in that country-side “Mount Ugly,” until it reaches the point called the Col de Casteix. Here the foot passenger would naturally cross, as he might have crossed still lower down by the Col de Cortes, but for the sake of a gradient the road goes right round to the north and over the Col d’Aubisque, falling from thence in very long curves down to Eaux Bonnes. The town is not 2½ miles from the top of the col in a straight line. It is more than 5 by the long zigzags of the road.

From Eaux Bonnes a road of less than 3 miles takes one down the Pyrenees to Laruns in the valley, and here the great lateral road of the high Pyrenees may be said to end.

One may go to Pau the same night, but, sleeping at Eaux Bonnes, it is a most interesting journey to continue down the valley of the Gave d’Ossau to Arudy and to Oloron, thence by the road through Aramits, and Tardets to Mauléon, thence by Musculdy, Larceveau, and Lacarre to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, but all that run is through the foot hills, and though one has fine views of the range from every little pass and hilltop, these last 80 or 100 miles are not of the same nature as the track I have just been describing, the chief feature of which is the presence of a good carriageway running through the very core of high and abrupt mountains. Still, anyone who has taken the lower road, as I have advised, from Bayonne to Perpignan and wishes to go back all the way to Bayonne by a higher road nearer the mountains, cannot do better than go on from Eaux Bonnes to Laruns, to Oloron, Mauléon, St. Jean Pied-de-Port, and thence down the lovely valley of the Nive to Bayonne.

So far I have described the main circular journey, west to east, and from east back again to west, which one can take in a motor car in the French Pyrenees.

To describe or to advise as to a similar journey from north to south is not so easy, because the Spanish roads are uncertain. Moreover, there is no Spanish road crossing the lateral ranges as the French one does, so that, unless one abandons the Pyrenees altogether and goes right down into the plains, a circular journey from north to south and back north again is confined to the very narrow choice between Roncesvalles, the Somport, and the new Sallent road.

The road over the Somport is the best international road between France and Spain. It is completely finished, and yet it is sufficiently modern to present every advantage for travel. On the French side it has been complete since the time of Napoleon III; on the Spanish side its highest stretches have been finished only in recent years. It is perfectly possible to take the whole road from Oloron to Jaca, and so back by Sallent and Laruns to Oloron again in one day, but it would be a foolish thing to do, and if the ascents try the machine, it might mean going through some of the best scenery of the Val d’Ossau in the dark. It is best therefore to break the journey at Jaca, and no number of hours spent in that delightful town are wasted. The first part of the road—the first 16 miles or so—are nearly level. It is interesting to see the straight line which the Roman track makes for the gate of the hills at Asasp. The pass seems to invite the road: it is the most obvious gap in the whole Chain.

The rise, as I have said, is slight. The river, which is rather less than 800 feet above the sea at Oloron, is not 1400 above it at Bédous; in the whole 20 miles or so, you rise but 600 feet. There are occasional hills, but they are insignificant, and the general impression is that of following the floor of the valley. When, however, one has passed through the great enclosed plain of Bédous, and left behind him its chief town, Accous, one passes through a narrow gorge, which rises continually to Urdos about 12 miles on. The rise is gradual, however, and never steep. It was at Urdos that the old valley road used to stop, until Napoleon III continued it to the summit of the pass, and for 7 miles above Urdos there are continual and steep rises. The pass, however, is low (it is but slightly over 5000 feet) and the last 2 miles before the summit are fairly flat. From the summit the road runs down on the Spanish side a little steeply, but with no really difficult gradient, and after about 2 miles of this, where the Canal Roya falls in and forms the river Aragon, the road takes on quite an easy slope. Indeed, the escarpment is so much steeper upon the French side that Jaca, though it is 25 miles away, stands no lower than Urdos close by just over the ridge. Rather less than half-way between the summit and Jaca is the little town of Canfranc. It would be a pity to stop there, the food is doubtful, and so is the wine, and if one wants to breakfast on the journey, it is better to make an early breakfast at Urdos.

After Canfranc the mountains open out and you are fairly in the lowlands; 17 miles on, through a wide valley, you come to Jaca.

Your hotel at Jaca will be the Hotel Mur, as good and comfortable a one as you will find in northern Spain. From Jaca you may go on to Pamplona westward, or down further south into Spain by Saragossa. As you enter the northern gate of Jaca, you will have gone exactly 57 miles from Oloron; a short distance I know, but I repeat, it is foolish to go to Jaca and not to spend your time in so charming a place. Moreover, the run back has no opportunities for repose.

The return journey is first eastward by the Guasa road, which has (or had, when I went along it last), a most indifferent surface in parts, and you follow this, with a railway never far from the road, some 10 or 12 miles, until at Sabiñanigo the railway turns down south and in much the same neighbourhood (but north of the line) the road turns up north and reaches Biescas (a smaller town than Jaca), in about another 8 miles. After that it begins to climb. At Sandinies the road bifurcates. That on the right goes up to Panticosa; crossing the river by the stone bridge of Escar, your road goes straight on up the valley and climbs up to Sallent for 3 or 4 miles.

I confess I have never been over this bit, but I am assured that it is practicable for a motor, and I have indeed seen a motor which had come round from Panticosa. There is nothing at Sallent that you can call habitable, though as motors live there it is to be presumed that there are ways of looking after them. You will do well to volunteer at the guard room (which is on the left of the road as you leave the town) information as to your whereabouts. It has happened to me not to be allowed to leave a Spanish town without all manner of formalities, while on other occasions it has happened to me to walk through one and over into France without a question being asked.

From Sallent the new road goes up with rather steep gradients at first, zigzagging up the side of the Peña Forata. The old road, a mere track, may be seen cutting off the great bends as one climbs the mountain. About a mile from the frontier, where the steepness of the road grows level, is a post of police where they may or may not bother you; they bothered me on one occasion, and on another they let me alone. From the summit, which is some 12 kilometres and more—say 8 miles by road—from the town of Sallent one goes down first gently, then steeply, with the Pic-du-Midi d’Ossau, a vast isolated rock, right in front of one, and one is accompanied by a torrent upon one’s left—which is the Gave d’Ossau. The road follows the right bank of this for some 7 miles, crosses over to the left bank, and 3 miles after this bridge reaches Gabas, a tiny hamlet, where is one of the most delightful hotels in the Pyrenees. Gabas is the highest inhabited point in this valley, and is just the same distance from the summit that Sallent is upon the other side, that is, between 8 and 9 miles. From Gabas down to Laruns the road continues all the way downhill, a matter of another 7 or 8 miles, and from Laruns back to Oloron, through Buzy, is a lowland road with a flat surface. The whole round from Oloron back to Oloron again is somewhere between 125 and 150 miles.

There is but one other circular journey for which I can vouch that it can be made in a motor car; it is the journey from Bayonne to Pamplona, by way of the low passes on the Atlantic side of the range, and back again through Roncesvalles.

You find yourself at Bayonne as a starting-place. The main road into Spain and towards Madrid goes along the sea, much as the railway does, and bears westward, but there is another road through the tangle of Basque mountains, or rather those hills which between them make up French and Spanish Navarre, and this road is the direct road to Pamplona. It is a short day’s journey of some 60 miles at the most when all the windings are taken into account, and there are no really high passes or steep gradients throughout. You leave Bayonne by the main straight road which leads out south-west towards Biarritz, but, immediately outside the fortifications, you turn to the left along the high land above the valley of the Nive. A mile and a half out you cross over the main line and immediately afterwards take the road to the left which leads you to Arcangues. There are many branch roads on this little bit, which is well under 4 miles, but the chief road is plain. At Arcangues, just after you have left the church on the right, you turn to the left, still following the high road, and in some 2 miles you strike the forest of Ustaritz, the confines of which were for so many centuries the sacred centre of the Basque people. Through this forest there is no doubt of the way. The road leading to the town of Ustaritz, which goes off to the left in the midst of the forest, comes in at so sharp an angle that one would not be tempted to take it, and the high road goes on, without any bifurcations, to St. Pée. You have, by this time, crossed the low watershed between the basin of the Adour and that of the Nivelle, upon which river St. Pée stands at some 13 or 14 miles from Bayonne.

You turn to the left in St. Pée by the road that leaves that village due south, and take the left-hand road again at the first bifurcation, which is immediately outside the village; then follow steadily up the valley of the river. There is but one doubtful place, not 3 miles out of St. Pée, where you choose the left of two roads, but even that is not really doubtful, for your road obviously follows the stream, which it there crosses by a bridge, while the right-hand road goes over into the hills. About 3 miles more from this bifurcation you cross the frontier, and thence onwards there is no doubt of your way. The high road goes over the Pass of Ostondo, or Maya, quite low, and brings you into the Basque valley of Baztan. Come on down through Elizondo, a most delightful town of this people, and climb up continually thence (taking the left-hand road at Irurita, one and a half miles from Elizondo) until you come to yet another pass, called the “Port La Betal” or “Vetale” in French, some 2000 feet or more in height. After crossing this col you are in the basin of the Ebro, and the road thence into Pamplona is a straight stretch all the way to the plain, which appears suddenly spread out as you round a corner, a fine sight.

The old road back from Pamplona into France over Roncesvalles, the road which the armies of Charlemagne took, and which the Romans built, went first east and west, and was the first portion of the great road to Saragossa. It met the road over the mountains and branched north towards Roncesvalles. There is a modern road which cuts off this corner, and joins the Roncesvalles road quite close to the hills. It crosses three low lateral ranges by very easy gradients, and has an excellent surface. It takes one through Larrasoaña, Erro, and finally, without any doubtful cross roads or turnings, falls into the old Roman road, just below Burguete.

Here you must make ready for one of the greatest sights in Europe. You are on a very high upland plain, something like the glacis of a fortification. The last crest of the Pyrenees stands like a long wall of white cliffs, which seems low and familiar, because you are so very high up on this sloping plain. You go through a fine northern-looking wood which might be in England, with great spacious clumps of beeches and broad glades. You pass the monastery, and then go up through the hamlet of Roncesvalles, quite an insignificant few hundred feet of road; you see a ruined chapel upon your right (ruined quite recently by fire, and yet no one has taken the trouble to rebuild it!), then suddenly you are at the summit, and a profound trench opens sheer below you and points straight to the French plains, miles and miles away.

It is here that Roland died, in the valley below.