Gave de Pau and around
France > Pyrénées > Central > Gave de Pau and around
From its namesake city, the Gave de Pau forges southeast towards the mountains, veering sharply south at Lourdes and shortly fraying into several tributaries: the Gave d'Azun (flowing down from Arrens), the Gave de Cauterets, the Gave de Gavarnie (draining its cirque) and the Gave de Bastan, dropping from the Col du Tourmalet. All four of these valleys, and the holiday bases in them, are served by SNCF buses from Lourdes. Cauterets, 30km due south of Lourdes, and Gavarnie, a further 20km southeast, are busy, established resorts on the edge of the Parc National des Pyrénées Occidentales, but the country they give access to is so spectacular that you should tolerate their congestion en route to the hills. If you want a smaller, more manageable base that's enjoyable in its own right, then Barèges, up a side valley from the spa resort of Luz-St-Sauveur, is a much better bet. As ever, if you pick your season right or even the time of day, you can still enjoy the most popular sites in relative solitude. At Gavarnie, for instance, few people stay the night, so it's quiet in the early morning and evening, and the Cirque de Troumouse, which is just as impressive in its way (though much harder to get to without a car), has very few visitors. By contrast, the spa of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, just east of the gave within striking distance of Lourdes, is fairly dull, merely a gateway to the Vallée de Campan.
Pages in section ‘Gave de Pau and around’: St-Savin, Cauterets, Luz-St-Sauveur, Gavarnie, Cirque de Troumouse, Vallée de Bastan, Bagnères.
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