PYRENEES FRANCE: The MOST FAMOUS mountain passes in the FRENCH PYRENEES

Ride a motorcycle in the Spanish French mountains of the Pyrenees, they said. It will be amazing, they said. There will be fantastic views, they said. So I rode to the Pyrenees, not only once, not twice, but for the third time. And this time, my journey to the Pyrenees was the most challenging so far. Good morning from somewhere in Spain. Today, we first hit the autobahn for a little bit and then go to France and go into the Pyrenees before we probably cross back into Spain. The starting point, somewhere in Spain, was close to the mountain Gorbia and the Parque Natural de Gorbia. Good morning, a new day of riding and hopefully a bit less foggy than yesterday because today, we go to a destination I really love and that I have already visited twice. We're going to the mountains of the Pyrenees at the border of France and Spain. But first, we have to cover some distance on bigger roads. From our starting point, it was a ride of roughly 300 kilometers to the first outskirts of the Pyrenees. Look, we are crossing back into France now, but don't you worry, guys, we will ride along the border of France and Spain through the mountains and very likely cross back into Spain at one point, maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We're just making a break here on the autobahn and next, we are going to La Rue, La Rue, La Rue, which is basically the start of riding through the French part of the Pyrenees. We turned off the autobahn at the city Pau. Pau is a commune overlooking the Pyrenees and part of the Pyrenees Atlantiques in France. And like I call it, the gateway to the mountain range of the Pyrenees because from here, the roads are only about to get better. We're getting closer to where the real fun starts. Here in the back, you can see the first glimpse of the mountains. I'm looking so forward to be back in the Pyrenees. They are so pretty. Behind me, you can see the mountains and a lot of cars. And we are now going to Gourette, which is basically the first stop on this little tour through the Pyrenees. So once you're here close to the town, I think it's called La Rue, La Rue, you just have to look for the signs to Gourette, which is the next bigger mountain town and continue the ride through there. Here you even see all the passes because some of them are not open all year, but now in August. Of course, everything is perfectly open and possible to drive. One of the best places to stop for lunch is Chez Tres in the small mountain village Beost, close to La Rue. The restaurant serves French food and is the perfect stop to enjoy the calm atmosphere of the small town. Can't show you any local food because we were too hungry and couldn't take any pictures of it before. After our very nice lunch, we now entered the National Park of the Pyrenees and we will first drive to Gourette and then continue all the way the next, I think one or two hours through the National Park here. ♪ Walking down the street on clouds instead of the concrete ♪ ♪ I'm dancing through. ♪ Oh my God, this is literally the trip of blocked roads, but it seems that we can just ride around this one on a smaller road up here in town. ♪ And I won't stop, I won't slow. ♪ ♪ Standing on my feet, I'm going to ride. ♪ From our side of the mountain, we had a great view on the spa town, Au Bon, that we were heading to next. Au Bon is a village in the West Pyrenees at the southern end of Valley d'Auzot, one of the most important valleys across the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department. The town center in Au Bon is a large open square with tall houses and hotels along both sides, built in the 1860s. On a raised platform overlooking the square, the casino was built in the 1870s and is an impressive example of Belle Époque architecture. So from here, this mountain village Gourette is very close, and I really like to ride here because the curves are just super much fun. Gourette is located at 1,400 meters altitude, and it's probably not the most scenic skiing town you have ever seen. It was a small upmarket ski resort until the 1960s and 70s, but then in the 1970s, the overconstruction of less attractive buildings took place like in many other resorts, and Gourette quickly lost its position as number one skiing destinations of the Pyrenees. Now we're riding up a mountain pass. Normally, you have a great view here, but it's all foggy. It's still kind of beautiful with the fog, but I would have loved to show you the view here. Look at this. How cool is this? Exactly here, we stopped when we were driving to West Africa in 2019 and enjoyed the beautiful view. And yes, in 2019, there really was a beautiful view. Normally on this pass here are these huge bicycles that I took a picture with every time I drove by, but now I think we maybe missed them because I couldn't see them in the fog. I don't know. Very sad. Instead of my beloved big bicycle, my travel partner spotted another obstacle on the road. Holy ----, that was a cow. Oh my God. If that would have been standing on the road, we would have driven right into it. Wow, you really see nothing in this fog here. But when the fog finally cleared up for a little while, I tried to film as much as possible of the stunning surrounding. The Pyrenees is a mountain range at the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly 500 kilometers from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Grosse on the Mediterranean coast. It reaches a maximum altitude of 3,404 meters at the peak of Aneto. For the most part, the main crest forms a divide between Spain and France, with the micro-state of Andorra sandwiched in between. For this day, our destination was only the French part of the Pyrenees. But don't you guys worry. We will cross back into Spain for the next episode and tackle the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Wow, finally no fog no more. I really hope it stays like this. The fog is kind of draining. The village Argel-Gazost is situated in the heart of the Valley of the Great Sights, near the National Park of the Pyrenees. It is the crossroad between the mountain passes Col du Bisc, that we were coming from, and the pass Col du Marlet, that we were going to. Now we are approaching Col du Marlet, and I just hope the weather is better because it really offers stunning views up there. So stay tuned. The higher we rode, the more fog there was, though. These mountain passes here are all part of the Tour de France bicycle race, and you see this with all the paintings and messages here on the road. And I tell you, normally the surrounding of this pass is just absolutely stunning. But now I'm very sorry, not so much to see. To prove this to you, I have some old footage from exactly this pass from the ride of 2019. Unfortunately, with a much worse GoPro. But I think you can get what I mean. It's really stunning. You know, the problem is not only the fog, but that the humidity in the air is like 100%, so it creeps in everywhere. And even though my helmet visor has a pinlock and it's normally really good in even rain, but now it's completely wet outside and inside. It's really hard to see, and actually very cold because I sometimes have to put the visor up. Otherwise I can't see. It's terrible. So this is absolutely nasty weather now here. ♪ What should I do? ♪ It had already been a long and exhausting day and we would have stopped at any time. But all hotels on our way had been full. So we were heading to the town Areo for finding a place to stay. We stopped at Hotel Dangleterre that looked absolutely lovely. But they as well didn't have any rooms left. So I ended up using an internet platform to book a hotel room. And it turned out that the only free room was 40 minutes away behind the next mountain pass in Banneret de Luchon, also referred to as just Luchon. Good morning, everyone. Here you see our motorcycles. And in the back you see how nice and foggy it is, but it will clear up and the sun is about to shine today. So if you're more lucky. And now I will go to a cafe and have some breakfast. Luchon is a commune and spa town in southwestern France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Luchonais or Luchonaises. And Luchon has an abundance of buildings worth to visit. For example, the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, built in 1847, or the buildings of the Thermal Springs. There are 48 springs in total that range in temperature between 17 degrees and 65 degrees Celsius. You're getting very French now, huh? No. So what are you having? Café au lait avec une croissant. Et? Et du cigarette. This was actually a very lovely time to visit and stay in, but now we are heading back to Spain and hopefully we will ride some off-road today, even though we are not really allowed to do so due to my travel partner's foot, but we will see. I hope you enjoyed the ride through the Pyrenees, even though there was more fog than good views. Give this video a thumbs up if you joined the ride anyways, and leave me a comment if you dislike fog too. I promise you though, we will be done with foggy riding and the next episodes will spoil us with beautiful sunshine, with the best routes off the beaten track and old smuggler roads from Spain to the small country Andorra. Tune in next Thursday to join the Got2Go travel crew again.