Saturday 9/7/11 62km dep. 10:15 arr. 5:30
We woke up to another grey cloudy day, wondering if it would rain. It didn’t rain and we found the Tour de France stage 12 route as well as learning some history.
St. Bertrand’s Cathedral
First stop was the nearby St. Bertrand cathedral at the top of the hill in the village. We paid for entry into a wood-carved church which was actually inside the stone gothic church. We also saw various gold treasures and the robes which St. Bertrand wore 800 years ago. St. Bertrand was a very good monk who oversaw construction of the cathedral and its cloister. When he died the other monks were sad and missed him so they kept his skeleton in a little gold box in the church. After his death he still preserved the cathedral, miraculously protecting it from the things which generally destroy cathedrals, e.g. lighting strikes, fire, religious wars, aerial bombardment, pillaging, etc.
St. Bertrand-De-Cominges
After finishing reading the double sided A3 brochure about St. Bertrand’s cathedral and admiring the treasure, we went across to Lannemezan where the Tour passes through. For lunch supplies we went to one of those huge Carrefour supermarkets which happened to be conveniently next to the road of the tour stage.
Cut grass
We ate a picnic lunch in the town of La Barthe-de-Neste then followed the road up the valley to the town of Arreau, where Col d’Aspin starts. For the Tour de France, they seem to choose the big main roads where possible, probably for logistics reasons and so there’s plenty of space for the peleton. For our own tour, the smaller road is better because there is less traffic. But today we followed the main road.
Forgot the name of this town
Camping in Arreau was fine. It was another one next to the river. There are plenty of nice camping places to choose from in this area of France. We cooked gnocchi and pesto then went to bed to rest for our next day.