Pool

This weather this morning was a bit dreary. The forecast was for rain so we hadn't planned going anywhere on our bikes. We set off up into the mountains to try to find the Pont d'Espagne. There's a cable car here which goes up to a plateau with a short scenic walk to a lake.
Our first stop was a town called Cauterets. In the Winter it's a ski resort. It sits at an altitude of 3 000 feet so access is up a very steep, narrow road with hairpin bends and tunnels designed to stop the road being blocked by avalanches.
Earlier this year in this part of the Pyrenees a combination of unusually heavy rainfalls and meltwater from the mountains flooded the valleys and caused huge amounts of damage as the swollen rivers surged down the mountains. We saw some of this yesterday as we drove up the Col du Tourmalet and again today on the road up to Cauterets. Parts of the road were almost completely swept away making an already scary drive just that bit more scary. When we got to the town we were almost in the low cloud. It wasn't raining but it was very cold.
The lake we were planning to go to is at least another 2 000 feet higher than this and would almost certainly have been in the cloud and would certainly have been a good few degrees colder. We decided that we would save the planned excursion for another day. There was plenty to see and photograph in Cauterets so we stayed there for a while. This is the town's outdoor pool. As you can see there were no takers today. Very understandable.
After lunch we found a funicular railway which went up to the top of a peak just above Lourdes. There was a tower on top which gave 360 degree views of the surrounding valleys and mountains. The train goes up at a gradient of 56 degrees which causes a few tummy flutters but the stunning views made up for that.