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Excerpted from The Rough Guide to The Pyrenees by Marc Dubin. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
There’s something to do in the Pyrenees at all times of the year. Snowfall permitting, the downhill/cross-country ski season gets seriously under way in January, while spring sees high-level ski touring. With the spring thaw, rafting and canoeing become practicable, and then the long summer walking season begins in early June – also a good time for riding, cycling, and the more extreme pursuits of canyoning and parapente, the latter essentially a cross between hang-gliding and parachuting. In autumn the crowds depart and the mountain trails are left to solitary walkers not afraid of the odd snow flurry.
The optimum time to visit obviously depends on what you want to do, but if possible you should avoid the French and Spanish national summer holidays, which run from mid-July to the end of August. It’s preferable to come after this lemming stampede rather than before: spring and autumn offer equal solitude, but high passes may still be blocked until July, and in September you’ll have the freedom of all the mountains. Besides the crowds, thunderstorms cause problems in high summer: the Pyrenees are very prone to them and during July and August several storms a week can be guaranteed. If you are out on the high peaks during summer you should always aim to be well down by early afternoon, when the storms tend to break.
The weather in the Pyrenees resists generalization, as temperatures can be erratic owing to marine influences, and microclimates abound. In summer, the cooling action of the sea can give each coastal strip a temperature several degrees lower than a few miles inland, while for every 100–200m of ascent, the temperature often falls by as much as one degree Celsius. Thus a summer train-ride up from Barcelona to Núria in Catalunya might take you through a drop of more than ten degrees. Conversely, there’s the common phenomenon of temperature inversion (especially on the French slopes), when the valleys become colder than the peaks, which protrude like islands from a white sea of cloud. The Bareges valley, for example, has particularly idiosyncratic weather, where a warm May can be followed by snowstorms in June.
If you’ve only got two weeks at your disposal, the Pyrenees are too vast to tour in their entirety, but in places public transport is good enough to explore a region roughly corresponding to one of the chapters in this book. The rail networks will get you within striking distance of the most interesting areas, and buses are often available to take you deeper into the mountains. A circuit of the Eastern Pyrenees, for example, could begin at Perpignan, continue south by train along the Mediterranean coast, move west by road through the verdant Garrotxa to the Ripollès valleys; then north by rail to the sunny plain of the Cerdanya/Cerdagne, and finally return to Perpignan by another train through the dramatic Têt valley. Circular itineraries such as this can be constructed in many other parts of the range – around Andorra or in the Basque country, for example – and even isolated, underpopulated zones such as the central Maladeta and Posets massifs lend themselves to loops on foot from trailhead villages served by buses. With a car or bicycle, you could probably see the best of two consecutive chapters in two to three weeks.
If you want to concentrate on one area, the Ariege will suit most tastes with its fabulous scenery, cave art, ruined castles and almost every form of outdoor activity. Over the border in Catalunya, the Parc Nacional de Aiguestortes i Sant Maurici, easily accessible from the Val d’Aran, makes an excellent introduction to the glacial glories of the higher peaks. Gavarnie, Bareges or Cauterets in France, and Torla or Bielsa in Spain, are comfortable gateways for the best of the French Parc National des Pyrenees and the Spanish Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido, the great, contiguous national parks in the heart of the range. For walks and climbs on the highest summits further east, make the all-purpose resorts of Benasque or Bagnères-de-Luchon your bases, while the westernmost high peaks – before the range dips below 2500m elevation – can also be easily explored from developed villages such as Lescun or Sallent de Gallego. During winter, most of these settlements are conveniently close to many of the best ski resorts, which include Candanchu-Astún, Barèges-La Mongie, Piau-Engaly, Peyragudes, Baqueira-Beret and Boi-Taüll, many of them the equal of the better-known winter sports centres in commercialized Andorra.
Towards the west end of the range, Pau is the largest and most cosmopolitan city of the Pyrenees, on a main transport route to Jaca, historic county town of the Aragonese mountains. They are the most logical and congenial gateways to the surreal karst country extending between the French Vallee d’Aspe and the Spanish valleys of Echo and Anso. Southeast of Jaca, beyond the sleepy provincial capital of Huesca, the Sierra de Guara is available for visits most of the year owing to lower altitude.
Inland from the surf-pounded Atlantic coast, with its elegant resorts of San Sebastian and Biarritz, the seductively green horizons and sumptuous domestic architecture of the Basque country beckon, with graceful Bayonne and atmospheric Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port as focuses. The Mediterranean beaches are more varied and – at least at the picturesque port-resorts of Collioure or Cadaques – more beautiful, and the climate reliably sunny. From here there are also opportunites for forays inland to the mysterious, volcanic Garrotxa basin in Catalunya or to the gorge-slashed foothills of the Canigou massif in Roussillon. Whichever part of the range you decide to visit, take the opportunity to sample both sides of the border if at all possible – the north-to-south change of landscape, climate and culture is one of the delights of the Pyrenees.
