Paris Pitstop

Eiffel Tower, Paris
Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

Claudia and I tend to avoid big cities whenever possible, but since we had a train connection in Paris on our way to the Pyrenees we figured we should spend an extra day here to check out some of the sights.

Jack's Hotel, Paris

When searching Booking.com for places to stay, for some reason this place looked good to me! 😉

Jim Morrison's grave in Paris
The Lizard King, R.I.P.

Of course I just had to go to the Pére Lachaise Cemetery to see Jim Morrison’s grave. His might be the least impressive in the entire cemetery, but it’s certainly the most popular!

We then visited the Montmartre district and the Sacré-CÅ“ur church. That area seems like a tourist rat hole and kind of left a bad taste. But I’ll try to resist passing judgement since we only saw a small portion and I’m not a city person anyways so don’t listen to me. I did, however, enjoy the Eiffel Tower, where we drank a bottle of Bordeaux wine while watching the sun set behind.

One day in Paris is enough for me. I’m excited to get back into the mountains. In a day or two we will be walking into the Pyrenees, the great mountain range that runs east/west forming the border between France and Spain. The plan is to start from the village of Lescun and trek eastward for up to three weeks. We will generally be following the Pyrenean Haute Route, but will probably also veer off on the GR10 and/or GR11 trails at various points. These are all long distance trails that run the length of the range from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The entire trails take about 45 days or more to hike, so we’ll just be doing a portion of the full length, creating our own route variations as we go. We’re in no particular hurry, and I look forward to traveling light for so long, staying in huts, and taking it as it comes.

Our original plan for September was to go trek around Mt. Blanc. We spontaneously changed our plans a few days ago – the Pyrenees simply seem more exciting to me at this point! We have maps and a guidebook; besides that I haven’t really done much research at all. I’m kind of excited about that too!

So this will be my last post for about three weeks while we’re off the radar. See you in late September!

4 thoughts on “Paris Pitstop

  1. Lescun! Pretty place! And still very rural. I stayed there 3 years ago in a modest aubergue (ruled by a grandmother). There are two pretty climbings from there (Billare and Table of the Three Kings -Hiru Erregen Mahaia in basque-, but also the surroundings are very beautiful.

    Take care, because this year we had a lot of snow in the mountains, 6-10 meters in many place up to 2000 meters, and there are still ice-plates (I’m not sure if it’s said that way) up to 2500 meters (piolets and crampons needed in many places).

    Billare is this mountain:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/izubiaurre/5762596898/

    And these are Lescun’s surrroundings:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/izubiaurre/5863468579/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/izubiaurre/8504904664/

    And very near from where I live; you are going very near to my country!

    Enjoy!

    1. Hi Imanol, thank you for your tips and photos! Since there was such a big winter, I’m glad that we are going late in the summer! We will be careful for sure. We just arrived in Oloron St. Marie tonight… lovely town! I’m so excited to start hiking tomorrow! 🙂

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