Breakfast at Hôtel d’Angleterre was expensive at 14.50€ each but it was excellent. Luckily the stiff climbing didn’t start right away because we were stuffed!
We took D929, aka Route d’Espagne south instead of D19. I saw a sign that implied D929 had once been a National highway but now traffic was light because of physical height and width restrictions through some of the villages.
Going through Cadéac. The road gets narrow and there’s a building with an upper storey extending across the road just ahead.
I recognized Place de l’Église in Ancizan from 2016; it was where I stopped and wondered which way to go. Today it looked familiar to me but not to Al. He and his buddies were descending and probably went through Guchen instead. He can’t remember and this is one reason I keep a journal because I’d never remember either!
Around the first switchback, I needed to catch my breath (again) because the start of the climb is steep. Why not take a photo while I’m still? Coquelicot, flower of the day.
It’s true, then. We had heard from other touring cyclists that Col d’Aspin was closed but that cyclists were ignoring the closure (as they had). We hadn’t planned on going that way anyway.
We stopped in Sainte-Marie-de-Campan to share a pizza at the place in the background (which had been a patisserie in 2016). The 6 young bikepackers were there too. They left in the direction of Col du Tourmalet; we didn’t.
Not for us today. That way or the other way, it would still be another 50 km. Neither of us wanted to do another, bigger climb today, especially in the heat. Yes, it was hot today and we aren’t used to that yet
Instead of riding over Col du Tourmalet (we’ve both been there and done that before), we headed north-northwest through Campan, where we turned onto the very quiet D8. At Pouzac we turned west on the also-quiet D26, following Scott Anderson’s glowing reviews of this alternative, scenic route to going over the big pass. It wa# excellent and it’s always a good sign of a good route when you see teams of young (and fast) cyclists out training.
Eventually D26 ended and we followed the Gave de Pau south on a busier road (though still the lesser road on the east bank. Until, that is, we saw the rail trail. We should be on there! It was perfect and took us to within 100 m of our accommodation in Adast.
The workers put up barriers today in advance of a closure Thursday and Friday to do some work on this bridge on the Voie Verte des Gaves. We and all the other evening cyclists ignored them.
We were welcomed to the B&B by Olivier, the owner. We learned from him that there is little work in the area and he would be leaving in the morning to fly “1000 km north” to his job. His wife would be providing our breakfast on a tray outside our room. As for other meals, there was nothing in Adast. His wife had prepared a list of restaurants they thought good or reasonable, mostly in Argeles-Gazost but some in other villages. One he highly recommended was by reservation only and he was happy to make any reservation phone calls for us this evening. We had him call the reservation-only place he’d recommended.
And so we found ourselves back on our bikes in our street clothes and heading up Hautacam.
It’s going to be featured in the Tour de France this year…
…which is why the asphalt has been milled off for repaving before the Tour. Luckily we were only going to the restaurant in the former barn on the left.
We splurged on the 40€ menu. It was excellent! This was the entrée, Tarte Tatin (a kind of apple pie) with a big slice of foie gras on top and a bit of dried magret of duck in the middle.
