Monday

All things considered, we have had a good day.

The distance from Vitoria-Gastiez in Spain to Bagneres-de-Bigorre in southern France is not all that far...maybe 150 miles or so.  But we had to take that side-trip to Bilbao to do a car exchange, so we added a little mileage and some time to the journey.   Hertz was very professional in all respects, and our call for 90 minutes as the Over/Under bet was way off.  (We both took the Under.)  It should have been set at 60 minutes, and the Under would have still paid.

The possible look-see at San Sebastian didn't happen.  We got just a little bit of a late start, and jumping into another city where we would be driving on unfamiliar roads just didn't sound that good to us.  We did get a few fleeting glances at the Bay of Biscay as we drove by in the highlands above town.  I guess that qualifies as our visit to the beach for this trip.

Google Maps had us driving on toll roads almost all of the way today.  Except for a couple of quick 2-Euro-each stations near the Spanish-French border, I used the Visa card in the automated lanes.  No lilt-y greeting from the machines after payment like we had in Italy two years ago.  We stopped inside the French border for lunch at a very-Western Interstate-like restaurant with buffet-like options.

You should check out Bagneres-de-Bigorre on line.  Its a tourist-trap town of some note.  They have natural, thermal spas that have made it a destination for people throughout Europe for quite a while.  Lots of native hotels...no Marriott's or Hampty's.  This is our room at The Tivoli...and this place got decent reviews!  (This back-to-nature part of the trip makes it feel a little like Indian Princesses, as in our over-nights at Camp Abe Lincoln.)

We got into town a little too early.  It is August 15th, and I'm sure that all you Catholics out there recall that that means that today is the feast of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And they were definitely having a celebration here to mark the occasion.  Not a parking spot in town.  Fortunately, The Tivoli has free parking on site, and we were able to slide into rock-star parking next to our hotel.

We took a walk downtown after checking-in, made our way to the local tourism office (that was actually open and helpful!), and took our brochures to seats at a cafe table in the boulevard in the center of town.  We had beer, not wine, but it was a very Continental moment.  (Wesley Snipes -not my fav by a long stretch- did a movie many years ago called The Art of War that ended with him and his love-interest finally getting together after lots of blood and back-stabbing at a cafe in the South of France.  For a non-movie-person, that scene stuck with me.  Sorry.)

We tried to find an open wine shop, with no luck, and then decided to check out a shopping area on the edge of town.  To no avail.  Everybody closes early here, I guess.  After a drive up the Col d'Aspin to scout tomorrow's ride (a bit scary!), we had dinner at a small pizzaria with a bottle of regional red called madiran.  Not too bad.

Sorry to make this a bit of a travelogue today, but you get what you get.  After our ride in the AM, the plan is to drive over to Lourdes in the afternoon.  We are a little apprehensive of the crowds (which makes today's following of Google Maps rather than an alternative route through Lourdes that I had originally considered an unwitting bonus based on the crowds here today!)  We'll see.

OK.  To bed for us.   Fare on the local TV?  Law and Order SVU...in French.