Gallery Rally — Jersey to Biarritz 2013

Day 5 - Biarritz to Montauban

A very warm welcome to Day 5 - as we now enter the 'beyond the Gallery Rally' phase of the trip.

It should be pointed out that as we will be leaving Chip and the crew behind as we venture off on our own, there will be no clues to solve, so those that have tuned in hoping for the same mental stimulation as the last few days may be dissapointed!

So anyway, on to our Day...

After a late finish updating the website last night (3.30am), we were understandably quite tired. To then get woken up by my phone ringing at 7.33am (6.33am UK time) by a withheld number was very irritating! Obviously I was unable to engage my brain to work out how to speak after so few hours sleep, so I duly went back to sleep.

To make matters worse, due to a technical hiccup, Mikes phone alarm failed to go off at the expected time, and it was only when Mike's fiancee Kate rang at 9.35am that we actually woke up and suddenly found ourselves with very little time to get down for breakfast.

So not a great start to the day, but the 5 star pancakes help to make amends!

We checked out, found the car, (someone had taken the keys off us and parked it deep underground), said our goodbyes to our lovely fellow competitors and organisers and hit the road for pastures new! We were flying the nest. Always an emotional time.

Some miles later, we decided to stop for coffee and fuel, and found ourselves a familiar looking place from a previous year..

 

So we filled the tank (again)....

Checked our levels... (Inside and out)

 

And, now fully topped up, we hit the road again...

Our first specific destination was a place we had stumbled across by accident in 2009 called Pic du Midi. At the time, we were unable to fully explore it due to the inclement weather conditions. So we hoped we'd have better luck this year!

So far, so good, the roads were open....

We reached the car park at the top, and parked next to some other quality vehicles..

And took the obligatory mountain shot...

And then decided the first priorty was some lunch..

It was very enjoyable, and not even a steak!

We then decided to ask some locals if they thought the view from the top would be any good...

He didn't really have much to say on the matter, so we asked someone else...

He told us it was probably a good idea to head up to the top of the mountain to the left, but suggested we ask the beaver what he thought...

The beaver said he lurvvvvvvved the mountain, so we went for it..

As we climbed higher..... the fog was getting thicker...

 

 

And Leon was getting larrrrrrrrrger....

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist, for all your Airplane fans out there!)

Anyway, on with the story...

So the mountains were covered in snow..

 

To get to the top, we had to change onto a second cable car that takes you to the summit.

 

Once at the top, we had a good look around.

It seemed that once again, visibility wasn't on our side.

At the very top of the pic there is a large ariel, but it is barely visible unfortunately...

Still, not to be deterred, we looked at some more views..

This is what we *could* have seen on a good day..

 

We went inside the museum area to look at what we could have seen...

 

Visibility wasn't looking like it was going to get any better (the weather was closing in further in fact), so we decided to return down the mountain in the telepherique.....

 

As it happened, we nearly missed the last cable car back down, which would have made for a rather boring night, athough in the big scheme of things it wouldn't have made a huge amount of difference...

We returned back down the mountain safely, delighted to see that no one had stolen the car whilst we had been away...

And decided to 'Get Religion!' (sorry, couldn't resist a Chip-style clue) and head to Lourdes.

When we arrived, the traffic was absolutely crazy...

Apparently the spring waters at Lourdes contain special healing properties. You can draw your own conclusions.

This place was like the Catholic equivalent of Las Vegas - it was so commercialised, it was not for me!

However, to give it its due, the Church was fairly impressive....

We decided this was probably not a good place to look for a hotel for the night, so we set a route, and started hunting down some potential over night stops.

This one would have been perfect....

....with views of the river....

But unfortuantely they had no rooms left. We decided to stop for dinner here anyway, then headed back to the road.

We drove for a bit longer, and ended up at an Ibis in Pont Jumeaux, on the outskirts of Toulouse, which was looking reasonably good (they at least had a room!) until they then told us their carpark was full. 'Don't worry, you can park in the carpark of the Chinese restaurant round the corner' she explained.

So we dropped our bags off, and went in search of the Chinese. Unfortunately, arrival at the Chinese wasn't the easiest task, as we somehow ended back on the Motorway out of Toulouse. Which wouldnt have been so bad except we'd dropped off all our luggage in the Ibis!

We retraced our steps, and found the Chinese restaurant. There wasn't any parking spaces to be found here either!

Getting a little annoyed, we went back to the Ibis, collected our belongings, and left the area. Or tried.

We got caught up in some very dodgy back roads with some very scantily dressed women and suspicious looking men hanging around on street corners. We thought better of asking them for directions. (we later discovered that Pont Jumeux is quite a well known red light district!)

Not to be deterred, we found ourselves at a Campanile a few miles down the road. Unfortanately, they were also full!

But the girl of reception was very kind, and phoned around loads of other hotels on our behalf. Unfortunately to no avail as it seemed anywhere remotely close to Toulouse was full. It must be popular for something!

So we decided to venture out of the city area, and eventually found ourselves in a vey pleasant Campanile 30 minutes down the road, in a place called Montauban.

As we didn't arrive until midnight and as the Wifi was very slow, we decided to get an early night and set about doing this update today instead!

So here you are, thats the progress for now - expect Day 6's update tonight (hopefully!)

Until then, its good morning from me, and good morning from him!

Here is Day 5's route.