Luz-St-Sauveur to Argeles-Gazost: Another moving rest day
After yesterday I figured I needed a day off before Col d'Aubisque so decided to take it easy and just ride the 20 or so kilometres to Argelès-Gazost, the usual starting point, as far as I can tell. I went to the little café at the youth hostel for breakfast; they had the news on and last night's attack in Nice was the story. My heart went out to those affected, while just enjoying their national day.
I dawdled about the campsite, waiting for my tent to dry once the sun had reached the area. Then off to have a quick look around and ride through the Gorge de Luz towards Argelès-Gazost. Just after Soulom, at the end of the gorge, is the south end of a Voie Verte that goes to Lourdes. It's paved and quite pleasant, especially after the fairly busy D 921 through the gorge. All the roadies were using it.
The Hotel Les Templiers is across the street. It might be an interesting place to stay. From the hotel website: "We chose not to put television into rooms in order to preserve this old house’s ambient calm." And here I was just attracted to the building!
Argelès-Gazost is on the side of a hill. There is bike parking at the bottom, both near a set of stairs and also near an elevator (!) that leads to the tourist office, but I rode around since I didn't want to leave my bike. With the assistance of the tourist office, I found a chambre d'hôte just off the route to Col d'Aubisque. No wet-tent-packing tomorrow, but it looks like I won't get much of a warm-up either, unless the road flattens out a bit once it gets out of town. We will see.
In the meantime I've done a load of laundry at the laverie (3.80€, cheapest I've seen) and hung it out on my host's clothesline. It's well-placed in the sun so everything should be good to go tomorrow.
I found a nice restaurant in the town, one not listed in the tourist office's guide. Dinner was excellent and should do me well tomorrow, I hope.
First course. I wonder why I only seem to take pictures of salads? I know the answer--it's in hope of being inspired to recreate them at home.
