"pyrenees"

During our latest trip to the Pyrénées, I took the kids skiing for a day at Saint-Lary-Soulan. Having skied for many years in California’s Lake Tahoe area, one of the nice things about the Pyrénées is that the cost of lift tickets and equipment rental is much more reasonable. For instance, an adult lift ticket is about $50. On our way from Aulon to Saint Lary, we stopped at Kangri Sports to rent skis and boots for the kids for about $30 for the day. Saint-Lary-Soulan is a solid, medium-sized station with 100 km of slopes and thirty ski lifts. We had beautiful…

The Pic du Midi de Bigorre is located in the Hautes Pyrénées department and the Occitanie Region. The observatory perched on top of the 2877-meter summit allows for panoramic views across the 300 km mountain ranges that run along the French and Spanish border. Visitors reach the Pic by cable car and then can visit a history museum inside or dine at the restaurant which features everything from fast food to local dishes fit for gourmands. One can also choose to come in the evening, gaze at the stars through various telescopes, and then spend the night in one of the observatory’s cozy rooms.…

All that snow got me thinking about the Pyrénées. It’s still unclear whether we’ll be able to get up there this year. But I’ve been thinking about an amazing week we spent in the Pyrénées in March 2019 that included a hike along the Pont d’Espagne. Located at about 1,493 meters up, the Pont d’Espagne was once upon a time a trading route between France and Spain. Located in the Pyrénées National Park in the Hautes Pyrénées Departement, the valley now is a pastoral wonderland in the summer that leads to Lake Gaube. But in the winter, it’s another world where people…

The appointment of Jean Castex as France’s new prime minister by President Emmanuel Macron this summer launched a flurry of political analysis by the nation’s chattering classes. But it also left many in the nation’s capital shocked because Castex has a Southern accent. In France, there is officially one right way to speak French and it’s hammered into kids throughout their school years. To deviate from this even in the slightest marks you as a “provincial,” or someone from the provinces, aka, everywhere that is not Paris. France has numerous regional accents, ranging from Brittany in the Northwest to Marseille…

To find a reason for optimism about the summer tourist season that starts next week in France, just pay a visit to the Maison D’Orride in the country’s southwest province of Béarn. Didier and Marina Monteil fled Paris several years ago to buy a stone farmhouse where director Roger Vadim and his then-wife Jane Fonda once filmed “La Curée” (“The Game is Over”) in the 1960s. After the couple painstakingly transformed it into a thriving Bed & Breakfast, it gained a national reputation thanks to the vintage décor of its rooms and traditional dinners such as hearty daube stew and…

Camping is finally on the rise in France and the folks at Glamping Hub have taken notice. Based in Seville, Spain, the outdoor accommodations company says its neighbor to the north has become one of its fastest growing markets. Glamping Hub focuses on unique, higher end outdoor experiences. It currently has 338 accommodations in France, according to partnerships manager Amy Ahlblad. “It’s one of our trending marketplaces,” she said. “We’re noticing a lot of demand from countries outside of France.” With camping seen as potentially an even more popular choice for the summer vacation period following the coronavirus lockdowns in France,…

If you’re heading to the mountains this season but looking for something a bit more exciting than a hotel or bed & breakfast, you can now book a night or two in igloo accommodations scattered across the French Alps and Pyrénées. The igloos range from fairly basic snow structurs to ones that feature dinner, bars, and lively nightlife. All that under the relative isolation of a night on the mountain side. Here are 5 companies that offer 9 igloo accommodations. An Alpine Igloo Undiscovered Mountains has igloos in the Southern French Alps at the Orcières 1850 ski resort. Located at…

France’s craft beer boom has been building slowly for several years, but the impact of this hops revolution really struck me one summer evening while meeting a friend for a glass of wine. We had sat on the terrace of a bar across from the Marché de Carmes in Toulouse and ordered two glasses of red wine. As we waited for them to arrive, I noticed something odd as the waiter continued to take other orders. Young, old, middle age, they were all ordering beer. I craned my neck around and couldn’t see another glass or bottle of wine in…

Producing a lavish musical like “Bernadette de Lourdes” would represent a massive risk no matter where it was being staged. It’s far from a sure thing that audiences would embrace a religious-themed story packed with power ballads and rousing songs about a 19th-century teenage saint who claimed to see visions of Jesus’ mother. But “Bernadette” faces other considerable hurdles. It’s a French musical premiering in a country that has never really shown much enthusiasm for the art form. (Don’t even get the French started on “Les Miserables.”). And it is being performed in Lourdes, the southwestern city that Bernadette made…

The 75th anniversary of D-Day hadn’t registered on our radar when we decided to visit the Normandy region in early May. Our decision to plan a trip there was driven by a combination of random circumstances. To wit: Another two-week school vacation was upon us; We would be spending the first week in Paris; A friend we had not seen in some time lives near Le Havre. So, hey, let’s visit Normandy! It seems strange to admit this, but Normandy had not been particularly high on my list of places to visit in France. In part, that’s because it’s considered…