A Tour Through the Pyrenees

Everybody agrees that life at watering-places is very poetic, abounding in adventures of every sort, especially adventures of the heart. Read the novels _L’Anneau d’Argent_ of C...

{186}On the eighth of August, at nine o’clock in the morning, the piercing note of a flageolet was to be heard at half a league’s distance from Eaux-Bonnes, and the bathers set...

Pau is a pretty city, neat, of gay appearance; but the highway is paved with little round stones, the side-walks with small sharp pebbles: so the horses walk on the heads of nai...

Around Bordeaux are smiling hills, varied horizons, fresh valleys, a river peopled by incessant navigation, a succession of cities and villages harmoniously planted upon the dec...

I have determined to find some pleasure in my walks; have come out alone by the first path that offered itself, and walk straight on as chance may lead. Provided you have noted...

I saw Dax in passing, and I recall only two rows of white walls of staring brightness, into which low doorways here and there sank their black arches with a strange relief. An o...

Here one must submit to long, stifling ascents; the horses trudge on at a foot-pace or pant; the travellers sleep or sweat; the conductor grumbles or drinks; the dust whirls, an...

Saint-Sauveur is a sloping street, both pretty and regular, bearing no trace of the extemporized hotel or of the scenery of an opera, and without either the rustic roughness of...

The carriage leaves Eaux-Bonnes at dawn. The sun is scarcely yet risen, and is still hidden by the mountains. Pale rays begin to color the mosses on the western declivity. These...

The street is a broad alley, planted with large trees, and lined with rather handsome hotels. It was opened by the intendant d‘Ètigny, who, for this misdeed, was near being ston...

Half a league off, at the turning of a road, may be seen a hill of a singular blue: it is the sea. Then you descend, by a winding route, to the village.

I thought that here I should find the country; a village like a hundred others, with long roofs of thatch or tiles, with crannied walls and shaky doors, and in the courts a pell...

From Luz to Gavarnie is eighteen miles. It is enjoined upon every living creature able to mount a horse, a mule, or any quadruped whatever, to visit Gavarnie; in default of othe...

The beeches push high upon the declivities, even beyond three thousand feet. Their huge pillars strike down into the hollows where earth is gathered. Their roots enter into the...

Cauterets is a town at the bottom of a valley, melancholy enough, paved, and provided with an octroi. Innkeepers, guides, the whole of a famished population besieges us; but we...

Every man who has the use of his eyes and ears ought, in travelling, to climb up to the imperial. The highest places are the most beautiful; ask those who occupy them. You break...

On the north of the valley of Ossau is a cleft; it is the way to Eaux-Chaudes. An entire skirt of the mountain was torn out in order to open it; the wind eddies through the holl...

Luz is a little city, thoroughly rustic and agreeable. Streams of water run down the narrow, flinty streets; the gray houses press together for the sake of gaining a little shad...

A stony, zigzag pathway excoriates the green mountain with its whitish track. The view changes with every turn. Above and below us are meadows with girls making hay, and little...

Upon a hill, at the end of a road, are the remains of the abbey of Saint-Savin. The old church was, they say, built by Charlemagne; the stones, eaten and burned, are crumbling,...

You set out for Bagnères at five o’clock in the afternoon, in the dust and amidst a train of _coucous_ laden with people. The road is blocked, like the roads in the suburbs of P...

When, after a two months’ sojourn in the Pyrenees, you leave Luchon, and see the flat country near Martres, you are delighted and breathe freely: you were tired, without knowing...

This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have been there, and that is a praiseworthy circumstance; many writers, including some of the longest-winded, have described...

The river is so fine, that before going to Bayonne I have come down as far as Royan. Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on both sides of the boat. At each gust of wind t...