The Pyrenees and Pau
We left Sos del Rey Católico and headed north. Our route that day would take us on some backroads through the very north of Spain, across the Pyrenees mountains and nearly to Pau (pronounced “Poe”) France, where we would be staying with dear friends for a few days. It would be an easy day driving through beautifully scenic areas. It turned out, in fact, to be an easy drive, except for about fifteen minutes of totally-not-enjoyable, no fun, scary driving.
A surprise: Ruesta
The first surprise was coming on the remains of a town called Ruesta. We expected to see nothing but hills and valleys in this part of Spain, so rounding a corner on a narrow winding two-lane road and seeing this surprised us greatly:
A little research later turned up some facts about Ruesta. It was founded as an Islamic fortress by the Moors in the 9th century. As the Moors were pushed out of Spain, Ruesta passed into Christian hands in the 10th century and over the next 10 centuries grew to over a hundred houses in addition to the fortress. In 1959, a huge reservoir was created nearby and all the residents of Ruesta, who had farmed in the area flooded by the reservoir, were moved to another location. All that remained in the town was the fortress, crumbling houses, and a hostal for pilgrims on the Camino del Santiago de Compostella.
Recently the Spanish government decided to restore the fortress and to add to the town’s capabilites to house the increasing numbers of pilgrims. That’s the state in which we found Ruesta. A small bit of Spanish history, still standing. This is one of the things we love about traveling: we’re driving down a narrow bumpy two-lane road, turn a corner, and run smack into an almost-forgotten place with a thirteen century history. Very cool.
Crossing the Pyrenees
After leaving Ruesta we headed toward the Pyrenees mountains. In 2021 we spent a day in a different part of the Pyrenees and were struck by how beautiful they are: deep green valleys and high mountains. We decided to take the lesser-used of two routes through the mountains to Pau, since we were not in a hurry.
As we expected, it was beautiful. As we got to the Pyrenees proper, we started to climb and climb and climb. We reached a view point, from which we could look back on the valley we’d driven.
I might have looked at this and had some thoughts…
Those thoughts might have been: “Still climbing,” “Dark clouds ahead,” “Hmm, snow on the mountains above us,” “No one but us on the road”, “Getting colder.” But I didn’t have those thoughts and so onward we went.
We continued to climb. Snow appeared alongside the road. It got deeper. We climbed into the clouds, so visibility dropped to about 50 yards on a very twisty road. We drove through several closed ski areas, with not another car to be seen. Snow started to appear on the road. The temp dropped to 3°C; that’s 37°F. Snow started to fall.
At this point, we had no idea how much farther we would climb, no idea where the road went, no idea whether the road would soon be covered with snow, no idea about anything. I decided that if the road did become completely snow-covered, we would turn around and go back and take a longer but lower and more traveled route, adding probably three hours to our travel time. The fact is, I was a little puckered-up at this point.
Then we came to the Spain–France border, marked by a sign. I knew that the border runs along the highest points in the mountains, so that meant we would start descending. We did. The temperature started to increase a bit and at one point I could see on our left side another deep valley, so I knew we would drop below the clouds soon…we did, and all was okay. The road was clear, we actually saw a couple drivers going in the opposite direction, the snow stopped. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and onward to Pau we went.
About an hour later, as we neared our destination, the skies opened and poured down on us what may have been the biggest raindrops we’ve ever seen. I couldn’t keep the windshield clear with the wipers on top speed. As I looked for a place to pull over and wait it out, the downpour stopped as suddenly as it had started. Phew! We drove on to our destination, which we were overjoyed to reach!
Penny and Pierre
We came to Pau to visit our great friends Penny and Pierre. We first met them because it was their cottage that we stayed in often in Bois-le-Roi and we became good friends over the years that we stayed there. Last year they started a new adventure, selling their Bois-le-Roi house, buying a house in the countryside outside Pau and moving there. We had three wonderful days with them, and were sad to leave. We know we’ll be back!
The house they bought is, um, old. This is a picture of the lintel over the main door, with the house’s construction date carved in it:
When Penny and Pierre told us they were moving near Pau, I read about the city and realized it would be an interesting place to visit and explore. But…the three days of our visit coincided with the three days of the Pau Grand Prix, a through-the-streets car race. So visiting was difficult with streets closed off. We did get into the city for a couple hours, watched some race cars at a distance for a few minutes, walked around the chateau and called it a day. Pau still looks to be an interesting place, and it’ll wait for another time for us to explore.
We were very sorry to leave Pau and Penny and Pierre - we look forward to seeing them again soon.
We packed up and drove back to Bois-le-Roi. We had been on the road for about 21 days and it was nice to move into the house we’ve rented for two months and get settled. But, geeze, did we have a great time traveling, seeing Sicily with Mary and Gilles and then Laurie and I going off to Spain, and wrapping it up in the Pyrenees with Penny and Pierre. Built a lot of memories to see us through the winter…