GR11 Day 29 Tavascan to Areu.

 3rd July

A really good breakfast including fried eggs before I started up the hill, a good breakfast and a steep hill being ideal to work off the bottle of wine that came with dinner last night.

Looking down to Aineto 

Good weather again, getting hotter but again a nice northerly breeze to keep it pleasant. Sitting on a sun heated rock could be interesting however!

Looking down 

There had been many signs of wild boar all the way so far but today was the first time I saw any. Two adults crossed the path ahead of me and later a large piglet came round a bend, squealed when it saw me and vanished into the bushes .

High-level path 

I looked up an interesting white butterfly and it is an Iberian Marbled White, there are lots of them about. 

Vall de Cardos

The path today climbed up the opposite side of the valley to another excellent high-level path to Boldis Sobira a little place I had seen yesterday from the path on the other side.

Boldis Sobira 

A steep climb up through the trees to reach the Coll de Tudela at 2243m before the descent through ancient pine forest to Areu.

View from the Coll de Tudela

Looking back up the path

Camping Pica d'Estas is a delightful campsite with the best showers of the trip so far, shaded pitches between trees and a swimming pool, I didn't try that!

Camping Pica d'Estas.

GR11 Day 28 Coll de Montcaubo to Tavascan

2nd July

Woke up at stupid o'clock feeling cold, put on some extra clothes and then didn't wake up until 8.15, so much for an early start! It was a beautiful morning and I wasn't long eating my porridge and getting packed up and away fairly steeply down the hill.

Wooded slopes

The descent is then on an ancient path to drop gently down to Estaon

The roofs of Estaon

I arrived in Estaon at the right time of for a nice cup of tea at the Refugio and to fill my water bottle which was the first chance since Drove yesterday.

Estaon

Track by the river 

The track continues up through a beautiful wooded valley with loads of butterflies in the sunny spaces to arrive at the abandoned hamlet of Bodres de Nibros, still looking reasonable but with  access only by a quad bike at best unlikely to be resurrected.

Bodres de Nibros

A stiff climb up the hillside which is covered with Broom, it would be a great sight when it's all flowering.

Coll de Jou and the broom covered hillsides 

Over the top and a long descent that turned into a track after passing a water trough surrounded by cows and a bull.

Hogging (cowing?) the watertrough

At Lleret there seems to be not much more than a water point and about two houses but a fine zigzag road to get there.

Water point at Lleret 

I didn't take the road but took the spectacular high-level path that traverses the side of the valley to Aineto.

Path traversing the hillside 

Looking down from the path at Lladorre 

An 'ordinary' path then continues to Tavascan where I had found a good price for a hotel room.

The old bridge at Tavascan 

The maps that I attach are pretty useless but you can download the map of the whole route here and zoom in on the bits you want to look at.

GR11 Day 27 Espot to Coll de Montcaubo

 1st July

There had been quite a lot of rain overnight judging by the puddles, it stayed dry all day though with sunny intervals, mainly when I was going uphill.

A good path 

A walk down the path from Espot before turning up the hill to Estais, this is an area of little hairpin roads climbing the valleys to tiny settlements in the hills.

Anyone for a hairpin?

There were a couple of people out in Estais as I walked through to the path that contours round to Jou.

Estais 

Jou is another tiny place, no sign of people but some well tended vegetable gardens as I descended to la Guingueta d'Aneu.

Jou above a vegetable garden 

I could have stopped at the campsite here, as suggested by the guidebook, but it was far too early and the temperature wasn't too bad for the 1300m climb up to the coll.

The church of Sant Bartomeu de Dorve dating back to the 11th century.

I followed the amazing zigzag road up to Dorve,an amazing piece of engineering and maintenance for what seems to be only two habitable houses.

Dorve 

On the way up I passed a couple of people tending a number of beehives, they were obviously annoying the bees as a number of them came to attack me, one of them stinging me on the cheek!

The Church door

Dorve has a number of crumbling buildings including a church as well as the couple of inhabited ones.

Looking down towards Dorve

The path climbs very steeply up behind the village and this, of course, is when the sun came out in full force.

On up through the trees 

Eventually reaching the shelter of the trees I continued up to the col where there is a grassy area dotted with small trees where I found somewhere flattish to put the tent.

Hiding in the trees at 2200 meters

A gusty wind certainly lowered the temperature.