Movin’ on Up

The valley heat in Novi Ligure was a signal to us that it was time to move on up to higher altitude. The last week had been miserably hot and, outside of Denise’s trip to Milan, we’d pretty much spent the middle of each day inside with the blinds closed. Even though the Europeans are missing out on screens for windows and ceiling fans, they are way ahead of us on the heavy-duty window shades. Every apartment we’ve stayed in so far has had either electrically controlled or manual shades to keep out the midday sun, and they do a great job of keeping the places cool. 

The two-day trip, although grueling in some ways, was interesting enough that I’ll go into some details here. En route, we discovered that Apple Music has playlists from the last seven decades or so, divided into categories (rock, pop, etc.), and listening to the hits from our high school years made the trip much easier (except for Dan Hill, bless his heart) .

After loading up the car — we’re getting really good at it by now — we headed west and south for the two-day trip to our next place, in Pierrefitte-Nestalas, a small village in the French Pyrenees. We considered several routes, from a southerly drive along the Mediterranean, to a very scenic, very northerly route that would take us through the heart of the northern Alps, and into Geneva, Switzerland. Ultimately, we split the difference and took a middle route that included some of the Alps and took us around Grenoble before bringing us through our old neighborhood in Provence. We were unsure about going through the Frejus Tunnel as we’d heard that traffic could back up easily and cause major delays. Nobody on Trip Advisor had anything good to say about traveling through the tunnel but the only option was to go up and over and the weather was rainy, foggy, and cold, not the best day to be on high, Alpine switchbacks. After a dozen or so long — and free — tunnels, the Frejus was a bit of a letdown. The toll was a steep 52 euros ($57), about the same as all the other tolls on the route combined, so maybe it was a cumulative charge for all that drilling. The worry about tunnel traffic was for naught — we didn’t see another car the whole eight miles. On either side of the tunnel, we were rewarded with some spectacular scenery, as you would expect in the Alps, but we had a long drive ahead and didn’t have much time to stop and enjoy it. Our goal was a hotel outside Nimes and, after eight hours in the car, we gratefully pulled into the parking lot. 

We enjoyed a lovely dinner on the hotel restaurant patio, served to us by our charming Spanish waiter Rigoberto, and took Coco on a well-deserved walk around the grounds before hitting the hay. Unlike some dogs, Coco has never enjoyed being in the car, although, thankfully, she no longer pukes from motion sickness. She’s a real trooper and we feel bad for her stuck in the back seat so we try and give her frequent breaks. We had done more than half of the trip already, so the next day we could afford to do a little sightseeing. After a typical French hotel breakfast  — meat, cheese, bread — we hit the road. 

Denise, always on the alert for roadside attractions, found that we would pass by the medieval walled city of Carcassonne within a couple of hours of leaving so we made plans to stop and take in the sights, have some lunch, and then finish the drive to Pierrefitte around the cocktail hour. I’d never heard of Carcassonne before but it’s as impressive and well-preserved a fortress as you’re likely to see these days. In fact, it looks like a children’s book version of a fortified medieval city, with dozens of peaked towers rising above the battlements — little wonder it’s a Unesco World Heritage site. Once again we were reminded of Disneyland and, giving in to the moment, we caved and boarded one of the silly Petit Trains that we had seen (and mocked) all over the tourist sites of Europe. Coco was not thrilled but Denise and I enjoyed the 30-minute loop around the castle, learning a lot about pig carcasses and how to trick your enemy. It was fun to sit in the train and finally be the people that the other tourists looked at with disdain. After lunch, we got back on the highway but, after eight hours of motorway driving the day before, decided to take the backroads to our destination, driving through some of the cutest little farm towns you can imagine, before finally arriving in the small village of Pierrefitte-Nestalas, nestled in among the high peaks of the Pyrenees. 

Since there is no grocery store in town, we ate our Friday dinner at a nice Italian place and planned our upcoming activities. (A side note: Italian food is hugely popular in France and seems to be overtaking the native cuisine. P-N, for example, has four restaurants and three are Italian-Pizza-based) Our host was Joel, whose day job is running a mountain guide business for all levels of hikers so we knew we would be in good hands in that department. The next morning, we went to the farmers market, a modest enterprise with a fruit and vegetable stand, a butcher (there’s a perfectly fine butcher in town so not sure what the appeal there is), and a couple of food carts. We found the one boulangerie, although the croissants were nowhere near as tasty as the ones from our village in Provence (we’re already turning into French pastry snobs). After lunch, we took a hike up to the old tramway track, now just a dirt hiking path, and I realized that we had discovered an excellent place to watch the stage of the Tour de France that would be coming through the town in five days’ time: it was on an uphill so the riders would be going relatively slow and we’d be able to get a good look at them. 

The next day, we went into the next town to do some grocery shopping and later took another hike to a spot above our town where the water pipes from the power plant cross the mountain. It’s an impressive operation, similar to the project in California that robbed the Owens Valley to bring water to the San Fernando Valley. The river Gave de Gavarnie runs through our valley on its way to the Atlantic and it’s still beautiful despite being heavily used for power and local industry. 

Our first big hike was to the town of Uz, about 1000 feet above Pierrefitte. We had a little trouble with the maps, causing us to take the steepest route, but we eventually made it all the way up to the village and celebrated with a picnic on the church steps. The suggested hike back down to town turned out to be a more difficult experience — some other hikers had told us of electric fences that they had to crawl under — so we decided to take the long way around, through the town of Saint-Savin. By the time we made it down the mountain, we were in need of refreshment but — quelle surprise! — it was a Monday and everything in town was closed. We hiked back to our house along a small road, stopping to admire an ancient chapel, finally logging nine miles on the day, much of it uphill.

We awoke on July 4th to a horrible reality: we were nearly out of coffee! The beans I bought in Turin were gone and we needed our fix. The only real coffee roaster that I could find was in nearby Lourdes — yes, that Lourdes — and so we set out in search of a miracle. We found the coffee shop ( Hallelujah!)and even walked around the city a little bit but we want to go back and get the whole Lourdes experience and so we’ll save that story for another blog. You deserve that much from us.

As I mentioned, by total coincidence, the Tour de France was coming to our corner of the Pyrenees for a couple of days, starting the next day. As a longtime fan, it was a big deal for me to finally see the Tour in person so our next edition will cover that experience in excruciating detail. Until then!