Holland To Portugal 2023

September 29th - October 1st Pierrefitte Nestalas is in the Pyrenees, on a valley that leads to one of the crossings into France. Quite a driving expaerience along the narrow twisting roads crossing from Laruns. The van was struggling a bit, no power below 2000 rpm until the turbo cut in and gave the engine a bit more air. Never the less a scenic trip. Pierrefitte Nestalas has a dissued rail track that has been converted into a cycleway or "La voie verte des Gaves". We stayed at a CampingCarPark in the village, with services and hookup as we were low on batteries and a fill with water for a shower. The cycling was easy, the surface of the track is smooth tarmac with a very gentle downhill slope on the way to Lourdes (and uphill on the way back). Lourdes was an eye opener, as we got nearer to the shrine the shops lines both sides of the streets selling all types of religeous parafinalia. The cathedral at the shrine was spactacular.

September27-28 This was one of the places I was looking forward to for some time. A cablecar ride to a little train ride to a lake. The little train (le petit train) is the highest one in Europe and was originaly built to ferry materials and men to build the dam for the Artouste lake,part of the hydroelectric scheme. It didn't disappoint. We arrived at the village late on as it was a lengthy jouney and we neede to shop, so we booked the trip for 11 am the following day, found a space on the side of the road, with a number of other vans, overlooking what should have been a large lake, Lac de Fabrèges. It was empty, again part of the hydroelectic scheme and there were a number of heavy machinery working in the lake bottom. The following day, loaded up with a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of chilled Rose wine for out picnic, we walked from our van to the ticket office and took the cablecar to the summit, fantastic. We had a good look around at the summit and admiring the scenery...

September 23 - 24 aftr Camping Municipal la Fontaine for a 2 night stop, as it was time to get some washing done. Its not that we run out of clean clothes, Jeannette packs enough for a small platoon, but the washing bag gets too large to be managable and the washing can end up larger than 1 wash and drying can be a real headache. Chauvigny is a small town with an interesting Medieval centre, well worth spending time looking round wich we did on the second afternoon after a morning on the Velorail! The Velorail is one of our favorite thing to do in France, climb on board a railway trolley that one cycles up a, usualy, dissused track and race or coast back down, depending if you want to use the brakes. Chauvigny is, as I have mentioned has a picturesque old medieval centre peched on a hill.

23rd September