Feasting for breakfast, wandering through Gavarnie, urban marmots on the outskirts to show us back into the hills, a red squirrel, a swallowtail butterfly, a cooling breeze making the golden grass dance and keeping us cool as we climbed up the side of a mushroom covered mountain, the Cirque de Gavarnie ever-present and ever-epic behind us, good coffees at a gîte, lunch in the shade before the path suddenly became a scratchy gauntlet with different thorns on either side and scarlet red grasshoppers leaping about, descending into a glorious forest with sunbeams dancing through the leaves then descending again into lightless, viewless, soulless, stony, awful goblin tunnels down to a D road that was as hot as it was long, terrifying scarecrows and posters advertising local cake (I've never been more terrified at the prospect of cake), songs to spur us on blasted out of my phone before finally arriving at a campsite where we are camped by a 12th century castle and have eaten like kings. A very long day!
***
We stayed in this campsite, the Camping Toy - very central with views of the castle across the river
This pizzeria, Che Coulet, in Luz-Saint-Saveur was so good we ate here twice.
The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 9h30
Peak: 1825m
Total ascent: 866m
Total descent: 1475m
