Walk from valley to valley amid great mountain scenery

Stay in small country inns (all en suite rooms)

Your bags are driven to join you each day

We supply maps with a choice of marked routes from challenging to easy and GPS waypoints

This is one of our most popular holidays - and rightly so. The route takes you from town to valley to hill to mountain along little known pathways, well away from tourists. Each evening you arrive at a country inn in a village or small town, very French in character, where dinner will be waiting for you.
The old Province of Lavedan begins just outside the town of Lourdes and extends southwards through seven valleys right to the borders of Spain. The area once had its own Dukes - you can still see their castles -who defended its independence against Spain and France for many centuries. The book The Grand Guide des Pyrenees describes this area as one of the most beautiful places in the Pyrenees range.

We have chosen this part of France for a hotel to hotel trek for a number of reasons. This group of valleys present a fascinating complexity of twists and turns, tumbling streams, flat glaciated valley bottoms and high peaks. The views are superb and the landscape adapts constantly as you move from valley to valley, from sparse mountain tops above the tree line to wild and steep river valleys lined with pines and beech and on down to the level of human habitation where you'll find attractive small stone built farming villages typical of this part of the Pyrenees.

We wanted to choose a route that was challenging enough for good walkers and flexible enough for those who like shorter days. Walks can often be varied from seven hours walking to four depending on the routes chosen. We also wanted to make sure that at the end of each day there was a comfortable bed and good food, so the trek links a series of good quality auberges and hotels in small towns and villages. We move your cases for you to your next destination.

Dinner is provided each evening in your hotel as is breakfast the next day. Your lunch arrangements are down to you. All hotels will make a packed lunch for between £3 and £6 if you ask the night before and these are good value. However if you prefer to make your own picnics there is the opportunity to shop at different points on the route and we will indicate these to you on your first evening when we meet to go through the route and arrangements and to give you maps.

This holiday is planned so that you walk in your own company or with friends and family on an independent basis and not with a guide. We provide maps and walk notes and we book all of the accommodation and organise the logistics for you.

Navigation on this route is greatly aided by our very detailed notes, maps that have the route pre-marked on them and a thorough briefing with a member of staff who knows the route well. However basic map reading skills are still important. This year also for the first time we can provide you with GPS points. This holiday described here involves two rest days at strategic points when you have reached two of the prettiest old towns in the Pyrenees, both with thermal baths. Both towns have good local walking as well. However if you prefer to carry on with your hotel to hotel route for six days, that too can be arranged. We can also, on occasions, organise shorter 'mini' versions of this hotel to hotel walk. Please contact Wendy for details and prices.



HOLIDAY ITINERARY
DAY 1 - Fly to Pau Pyrenees
Arrive at airport to be picked up and driven to our first stay in Salles. The restaurant for this evening is famous in the area and much of the food is cooked on an open barbecue in the centre of the dining room. On fine evenings there is the possibility of dining outside, by the old stables. But beware! They have a very small horse which likes to come and pinch your food! Before dinner we will sit down with maps and route notes and explain how the week works and all the days' routes. We live just a few miles away and you will have all our contact numbers in case you need to call.

DAY 2 - Argeles Gazost
There is a choice on this first day of walking between a longer and a shorter route. Both mean that you leave the limestone massif of the Pibeste at your back and head across a complex, largely agricultural, landscape. At times the valley town of Argeles Gazost is visible below, at others it is shielded by low hills. Argeles is a traditional farmers' market town but it turned itself into a fashionable spa in the 18th century by rerouting the thermal waters from the other side of the valley which you can also see across the flat glaciated plane that lies below. On the shorter route you head in a wavy line around the low rounded hill of the Pic de Gez before arriving at your destination. This is an interesting route for those who enjoy looking at village architecture and life. You pass through or near a number of very typical Lavedan villages with their substantial houses, protecting against cold in the winter and sun in the summer. Arcizans Avant is an old village set at the base of the imposing Cabiliros mountain amid rolling hills dotted with picturesque farms.

For the longer walk you start the descent from Salles and turn upwards and southwards through beech and pine forest tracks until you emerge through the rocky Col de Liar. The Argeles valley is laid out flat below you. From the col there is a steep meander down the hill, naked of trees on this side. Once in the valley, you will cross over a few streams, head through some farms and up into the village of Arcizans..

DAY 3 – The Cabaliros and Cauterets
There is another choice to be made today. For those who want a longer walk (and it is long!) there is the possibility of climbing and then descending the impressive Cabaliros mountain (Ascent for full route 1600, descent 1350.). For those who would like an easier day there is a different option. Option one offers the hardest day of the tour and is not advised if visibility is poor or for those with little experience of hill walking. The day starts with a tough, long, winding ascent on footpaths to the Pic de Cabaliros (summit: 2334 metres). In early summer there will still be patches of snow here. The views from the top are magnificent in all directions - north back over the hazy plains or South up into the higher mountains. (For those who want to try this route but are anxious about its length, we can sometimes help at the start of the day with a lift in our landrover up a mountain track - which still leaves a good day's walking but substantially reduces the amount of uphill).

From this high point the route then winds along the crest of this range, overlooking on one side the Vallée d'Estaing and on the other the Cauterets valley with the river glistening away far below. There is then a steep descent down into the town of Cauterets itself. Option two means that you would start your day the easy way to get to Cauterets - in the landrover with the luggage! There is some great walking starting from this elegant town. Our proposed route for a day loop would take you from your hotel to the pont d'Espagne along an easy rising footpath we call 'the waterfall path'. The falls are dramatic, especially when the snow in the higher mountains is melting. You hear them before you see them thundering down next to your path.

The pont d'Espagne has a pleasant, very French, café-restaurant for lunch or you can continue up an old donkey track into the higher mountains. Alternatively you might want to head downhill earlier and take advantage of the fact that Cauterets is a Spa town with an elegant old baths offering thermal water swimming and treatments.

DAY 4 – Walking in and around Cauterets
Cauterets and the Marcadou Valley are too good to leave after just one night! The town is interesting in itself with long streets of high buildings and elegant statues crammed tightly into the narrow valley bottom. It's a lovely place to sit, have a coffee and watch the world go by. Above the town opens up the Marcadou Valley, famous for its walking. 'Marcadou' is the ancient dialect word for market, and it is here that Spanish and French traders gathered to exchange goods, not in any one place but wherever they crossed paths.

It's a great place for spotting izard (Pyrenean chamois) which are protected in this National Park. There is a pretty walk over granite slabs and through pine trees to the very blue Lac de Gaube. Fit people can then continue onwards to reach a full on view of the Vignemale mountain - the highest in the French Pyrenees.

DAY 5 – Over to Luz
This day is really a matter of going up one side of the mountain and down the other in a fairly straight line but in this case in steep zig-zag bends along the GR10 footpath. The route climbs steeply out of the back of Cauterets up to the winter ski station of Luz Ardiden and then crosses the mountain down and eastwards to the tiny village of Viscos. Where you spend the night.

There are alternative routes for the descent but from all paths you have huge views over Luz St Sauveur and the Vallée de Bareges. (ascent 1050 m. descent 1100 on this day.) For those of you who love peaks there is a two hour deviation to climb to the top of Pic Viscos - a classic triangular pointy 'Toblerone' peak.

DAY 6 – Viscos to Luz
The distance between your starting village and the town of Luz Saint Sauveur is not far but there are a number of options today. For those of you interested in farming there is a great little goat farm to visit en route. We can arrange for you to be taken around and to try the cheese and other products. The farm uses only traditional methods of farming. Students come from all over the world to study ecological farming here. If you wish, from here you can follow the GR10 directly down to luz in an hour. You could arrive in time for an evening in the thermal baths.

For those who prefer to keep walking there is the option of a southern loop traversing the mountainside in the forest before emerging into the clearing and barns near at the Croix de l'Agnouede. Your route then takes you down to the thermal baths and across the famous, gorge-spanning Napoleon's bridge before heading to the hotel for a well deserved beer. Whichever route you choose, on a clear day you will see why this valley has earned the name 'Light of the Saviour'. The town of Luz itself is a delightful old mass of stone buildings huddled around the 12th Century fortified Eglise des Templiers.

DAY 7 - On and up to Bareges
Today you are heading for another thermal village - one whose waters are famous for healing broken bones. (This is fortunate since in winter there is a ski resort higher up the mountain!) To arrive at this small village you follow the GR10 again as it climbs out of the wide valley funnel above Luz before leading you into the trees of the Lienz Forest and on up the increasingly narrow Bareges valley. The route mixes trees with stretches of rough open grass land. It is one of the only valleys in the world to carry an AOC mark for the quality of the lamb grazed on the slopes below you. In this tranquil scene it's hard to imagine the power of the huge 1939 avalanche which poured down this valley wiping out most of the population of Bareges. If you look up you will see the modern protection put in to prevent this re-occurring. This small Napoleonic village is you last stop on your walk through the Valleys of Lavedan.

DAY 8 - Fly back to London
You head back in our minibus to Pau Airport or Lourdes SNCF to connect with transport back home.

Please Note: This itinerary may be altered if conditions are judged unsafe or if they indicate another route would be preferable for the group’s comfort.

EQUIPMENT AND PACKING IDEAS
We recommend that people joining this trek are equipped with the following:

Technical equipment
Comfortable Walking Boots (2 or 3 season)
Walking pole if you like them
Waterproof map case

Clothing suggestions
Fleece
Waterproof jacket
Warm hat
Warm gloves
Sun hat or peaked cap
Sunglasses
Shorts and T-shirts
Good quality walking socks

Other useful items
Small rucksack
Sun block for face and lips
Personal First Aid kit (plasters,compede, paracetamol)
Water bottle or Platypus
Penknife

Optional items
Camera
Snack bars/dried fruit/chocolate
Compass
GPS

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