June 9, 2024
Adast to Arudy
From a post this morning on La République des Pyrénées (a local news site):
“60 mm de pluie. C’est le cumul de précipitations annoncé ce dimanche 9 juin sur Pau par Météo France. Quand on sait qu’en moyenne, il tombe moins de 90 mm sur l’ensemble d’un mois de juin (sur la période 1991-2020), on comprend mieux pourquoi Météo France a étendu sa vigilance orange à la « pluie-inondation » jusqu’à la mi-journée.”
This makes missing Col d’Aubisque a little easier to swallow. Even if the road weren’t closed, we’d be thinking seriously about going that high in such weather conditions, not to mention the increased instability due to the heavy rains last night. It’s not like we’d be missing fantastic views as they’d be obscured.
Instead, of our various options, we narrowed it down to two. Ride to Lourdes on the Voie Verte, then continue riding west to Arudy, or take a couple of trains to Buzy-en-Béarn and another rail trail to Arudy.
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The riding was pleasantly cool until Lourdes, where the rain started just as we arrived. Decision made. We rode to the Gare SNCF and bought our tickets to Buzy. We would have to change in Pau and the first train was running late, so we would miss our connection, but hanging around train stations sounded better than riding in the rain, given a choice.
The first train, from Lourdes to Pau, was an Intercités. When I bought the tickets, there was no option to add a bike, so I didn’t. When we got on, there were no bikes in the designated place, but there were several signs telling us in multiple languages that bike spots *must* be booked when purchasing tickets or with the “train manager”, a label must be attached to each bike (available from the billetterie, which was closed, or from the mysterious train manager). Neither option was available to us, so what were we to do? Anyway, we made it to Pau without seeing any SNCF employee.
The station at Pau is undergoing a major renovation. I hope it will include lifts! We carried our bikes down and up the stairs to the waiting room and learned that the next train to Buzy wasn’t until 4:00, giving us 3.5 hours in Pau. Maybe we should just ride? I had created a route while we were waiting in Lourdes so we knew it was about 26 km. In either case, killing time or riding to Arudy, something to eat was in order.
Across the street from the station was … nothing. Nothing other than a stationary funicular, that is. It seems the city of Pau is on top of an escarpment and the railway station is below. So we pushed our bikes up a paved switchback path (marked as a cycle route) and found a place to share an unmemorable pizza and salad.
By the time we were done, the rain seemed to have stopped and we figured we would get to Arudy on our bikes before the train’s scheduled departure. We rode, and we did.
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Eventually, we arrived in Arudy and found our hotel. It wasn’t hard; it’s a pretty small village, just big enough to have a Logis hotel. The hotel is right on the central place.
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Dinner at the Logis hotel exceeded expectations, though we did have the 29€ menu formule (wine not included). I didn’t take a photo of our first course, garbure béarnaise. It’s a vegetable soup, tasty but not particularly photogenic. It was brought in a pot from which we served ourselves.
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Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 1,765 km (1,096 miles)
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