Gourrete

We drove back up into the Pyrenees up another valley towards Artouste. The sun was shining and the mountains looked amazing.

We first stopped at the vulture centre which is unfortunately permanently closed - but we were able to see vultures flying high up around the tops of the mountains - but only with binoculars.

We then stopped at the cute mountain village of Laruns to visit the tourist office.

To see vultures it was recommended that we went to the ski resort of Gourette. Once there we were able to see the vultures very high up.

We were able to go up in the cable car to get closer - and the views were great. We could see around 50 vultures circling around the tops.

We enjoyed a small walk up there above the town and then enjoyed the trip down.

The tourist office at Gourette also told us about an ‘animation’ about vultures that she signed us into in the town further down the hill of Eaux Bonnes. This is a lovely old spa town built up by the Empress Eugenie who obviously enjoyed holidays.

There is an old casino and hotel there - both looking in need of renovation.

We were to have the ‘animation’ in the park - and we had no idea what we were looking for.

We circled around a few times looking for clues and then found French people looking for the same thing. They phoned up and found out it was a bird expert we were meeting in the park.

We then eventually found the expert who was casually sitting in the fence not making his presence known until there were lots of people milling around looking lost.

He did the intro and a bit of a talk in French we were able to barge in and find out more about the griffin vultures. We met some lovely people there from Bordeaux who we had a good chat to.

We then headed back down the hill and then up another valley where we were staying for the night. The roads were very windy with bits of rock sticking out and hairpin bends.

We made it up to near Artouste Ski Station where we had a trip next day.

We were on the edge of the lake surrounded by huge mountains - very picturesque .

After we got settled in there was a bit of commotion from behind us. A man with a beret was shouting at everyone to come and buy his cheese from out of the back of his van. We had a taste and thank goodness it was very good. I don’t know what would have happened if we turned him down.