Our Version of the Tour de France

We left St-Lary-Soulan Thursday morning to drive across the col d'Aspin and col de Tourmalet .  It's amazing that these were 2 of the 4 cols that were part of one stage of the tour. 

Two Days and Two Incredilbe Climbs

We left Carcassonne (Languedoc-Roussillon) Tuesday morning and drove to Saint Gaudens (Haute Garonne). On the way we stooped at a site the Cathars built  called Montségur (Ariège Pyrénées). In the first picture you can see the huge structure on top of this isolated, tall rock spire.  The second one shows the view down to the parking lot.  It was a 45 minute walk (straight up - I guess there wasn't enough room on the rock for switchbacks).  It was so steep and slippery that it took us about twice as long to get back down.

This as all we saw once we got up there.

From a differnt viewpoint.

From Saint Gaudens, we drove to St-Lary-Soulan (Midi-Pyrénées).  To get there we drove to Luchon ( a Tour de France staring point) and up across the col de Peyresourde.  Between Luchon and St-Lary-Soulans, we stopped at Lac d'Oô (Hautes-Pyrénées).  That was a 2 mile and 320 meter climb in the Pyrenees - beautiful.

About a third of the way up, I took this picture of our parking lot.

There was no way to take in the whole scene, so I chose a mountain and lake combo.

Carcassonne (2nd post today)

On Monday, August 30, we left St. Remy and drove to Carcassonne, where we visited a chateau built within this fortified city.  Our hotel room and the hotel's restaurant overlooked the walled city.  Pretty cool.

I cheated - the picture below is from a post card.

There was a church there too with a beautiful stained glass window.  I wanted it to be a kaleidescope!

Gallo-Romans

This picture is for you, Henry.  Can you identify this car?  Ours is the black one in the picture.

We visited Glanum, an archaeological site in St. Remy-de-Provence. The ruins visible now are from Roman occupations -  they were driven out by the Visigoths about between 200 and 400 A.D.  Gauls and others had inhabited it from a century or two B.C. It was really cool - the arch was the entry to the city.