Pyrenees roadtrip (very photo heavy)
Discussion
As my previous photo thread on here from my 2022 roadtrip through Germany, Luxemburg, Italy and the Swiss alps was rather popular I decided to make another one of our road trip to the Pyrenees of which we've just returned.
Link to the one mentioned above: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
So following that roadtrip we fancied another one, and after seeing some great pictures from a group of mates driving through Spain I set to create the itinerary.
The plan was to cross the Pyrenees from East to West and end up in San Sebastian.
As I went with the wife and we want it to still feel like a holiday the journey was broken up in smaller chunks with various hotels booked along the way, and I believe the longest driving stretch to get to a destination was about 265 mile (4 hours).
Main thing we wanted from the hotels was secure parking, near the tourist sights, and a swimming pool if possible.
We take the ferry from Harwich to the Netherlands a few times a year as I'm Dutch but we hadn't tried any of the other routes available from the UK yet so we were keen to give them a go and we took the night ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo, which is about 300 miles (5.5 hours) south from Calais so it removes a large chunk of driving already.
The ferry left at 20:30 and we arrived in St Malo at 08:15 the next morning.
The old town is less then 5 minutes away from the Port so we stopped there to have some breakfast before heading for La Rochelle, our first overnight stop of the journey, which is about 200 mile (3 hour drive) from St Malo.
As people asked in my other thread about the hotels we booked I might as well add them in, and our first hotel was "Hôtel Central Park & Spa" which has private secure parking, is a 10 minute walk from the beach and old town and has some lovely rooms, including this one this comes with it's own terrace with private jacuzzi.
La Rochelle is a lovely little place with a couple beaches and a nice old town with good restaurants and it was a great little first stop.
From La Rochelle we drove down to Toulouse where we stayed a couple nights in "La Cour des Consuls Hôtel & Spa", which again was close to all the sights, had a Michelin restaurants on site, and a valet parking in a little forecourt in the middle of the hotel.
I enjoyed Toulouse, but the city itself is very car unfriendly, and parking looked like a nightmare, so I'm glad we had reserved parking here (€ 36, a night).
After a couple days in 'the city' I wanted to relax on a beach somewhere to chill and enjoy my birthday and have a few drinks.
We looked at Narbonne, Angles-sur-mer, and Banyuls-sur-mer but ended up going for a place called "Le Barcarès" , which is right on the beach and less busy.
It's about 120 miles (2 hours) away from Toulouse and we stayed in a place called "Domaine Le Courti" which is a 'Adults only' guesthouse with 5 separate suits, private parking, a large pool and 5 minutes walk from the beach.
We spend a few lovely days doing nothing, bar laying on the beach and/or by the pool and had some lovely meals in the town.
The plan was to drive from here straight to Andorra, which is about a 100 miles West from here, however following some posts on the forum another PH'er suggested some roads South (Spanish side) that were really good, so we went South along the coast and drove the N260 towards Riphol (where we stopped for a quick coffee) which was epic.
Stunning roads sweeping through the mountains mixed with hairpin bends and long straights.
So much fun and so empty as well, especially compared to my Alpine trip. think I only overtook 4 or 5 cars in the space of like 4 hours driving.
After our detour via Riphol we then went North again and drove into Andorra, stopping in their capital Andorra La Ville for some sightseeing and another great meal.
We then left Andorra for our hotel in Llavorsí (near Sort) ready for a day of driving the following day.
We stayed in "Hotel Riberies & SPA" which had a pool and private underground parking.
The next day would be our 2nd 'driving' day, and I researched the various routes, both through France and Spain I wanted to do online, which included :
Though I think after doing the first couple we took a detour back into Spain to enjoy some more of the N260 so we might have missed one or two of those out.
I found a couple pictures online from an organised tour which had some more information on them including a couple photo opportunities on the map
We spend most of today driving with a couple stops for coffee/lunch in some little towns we came across and again the roads were amazing, had a decent speed limit (which often was a challenge to reach) and again were so quite compared to the Swiss Alps.
We finished our driving down in Jaca, and stayed in a hotel called "Hotel & Spa Real Badaguás Jaca" which again had private underground parking and a swimming pool, and they had a very good restaurant as well.
Our final destination was San Sabastian which was a 130 mile (2.5 hour drive) away from our hotel, but the Sat Nav wanted to take us mainly over the A21 motorway, however we ignored this and instead went the scenic route along the N240 which again was stunning, had some great twisties in it, and ran past a couple of beautiful lakes and was so much nicer then that motorway route.
We wanted to stay in the old town in San Sebastian and close to the beaches and finding secure hotel parking wasn't easy so we picked a hotel that was next to a underground car park which worked out fine.
We absolutely loved San Sebastian and were in foodie heaven, trying all the various Pinxtos (small tapas still dishes) bars and even went for a swim in the sea.
The hotel was called "Hotel Villa Katalina" and was right next door to "parking Buen Pastor".
Instead of driving all the way back up into France we decided to take the ferry from Spain back to Portsmouth. There's one from Santander and one from Bilboa, and the later one suites us best so we took that one.
Bilboa is only 70 miles from San Sabastian so it takes less then 1.5 hour and it's a nice place to explore as well.
The route from San Sebastian to Bilboa was mainly motorway, but even that was fun as they had loads of 3 lane hairpin bends, which had advisery speeds of 60 to 80 km/h (for the bends) alongside the actual limit of 120 km/h still, and because it's a tollroute it wasn't busy, so I actually quite enjoyed going from hairpin into hairpin at 120 km/h
Our Ferry left at 19:00 and arrived back in the UK the next day at 21:00, so you got a night and a whole day on the boat, but it was really enjoyable.
The cabins were nice and came with Video-on-demand (streaming films/series) there a few restaurants, a cinema and we had booked access to the C club lounge, which had complimentary snacks, drinks (including wine) and meals through your journey and I was impressed with the quality of the food so I'd definitely recommend booking that lounge if you do this journey.
In total I think we'd spend about € 70, on the French toll roads, and I'd ordered one of the Emovis Tags which you attach to your windscreen and takes automatic payment and the barrier opens as soon as you pull up. There's a few companies that do this but this one is UK based so setting up the payment details for it was easy.
The only downside is this one doesn't do Spanish toll roads, but then we only came across two of those and you just pay when you enter them and that's it.
https://www.emovis-tag.co.uk/
And as with my previous trip, most of the driving photo's are taken with my little Gopro (type) camera which is a Akaso V50 and comes with a little bluetooth button which I've velcro'd next to the steering wheel, so whenever I wanted a photo (or video) of the scenery you just press the button and that's it.
On the last trip we ran it of the batteries but that wasn't ideal (having to change them mid drive) so this year I bought of these multi phone charger things of amazon to plug into the 12V cigarette lighter and then kept both our phone's charged as well as the camera via the USB port.
We did 1500 miles in total spread over 2 weeks and 6 hotels and despite being able to proper push the car on the hairpin roads, I think I actually enjoyed the roads like the N260 more and would happily go back to them to explore more of Spain.
Any questions about the routes and/or hotels etc feel free the ask!
Link to the one mentioned above: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
So following that roadtrip we fancied another one, and after seeing some great pictures from a group of mates driving through Spain I set to create the itinerary.
The plan was to cross the Pyrenees from East to West and end up in San Sebastian.
As I went with the wife and we want it to still feel like a holiday the journey was broken up in smaller chunks with various hotels booked along the way, and I believe the longest driving stretch to get to a destination was about 265 mile (4 hours).
Main thing we wanted from the hotels was secure parking, near the tourist sights, and a swimming pool if possible.
We take the ferry from Harwich to the Netherlands a few times a year as I'm Dutch but we hadn't tried any of the other routes available from the UK yet so we were keen to give them a go and we took the night ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo, which is about 300 miles (5.5 hours) south from Calais so it removes a large chunk of driving already.
The ferry left at 20:30 and we arrived in St Malo at 08:15 the next morning.
The old town is less then 5 minutes away from the Port so we stopped there to have some breakfast before heading for La Rochelle, our first overnight stop of the journey, which is about 200 mile (3 hour drive) from St Malo.
As people asked in my other thread about the hotels we booked I might as well add them in, and our first hotel was "Hôtel Central Park & Spa" which has private secure parking, is a 10 minute walk from the beach and old town and has some lovely rooms, including this one this comes with it's own terrace with private jacuzzi.
La Rochelle is a lovely little place with a couple beaches and a nice old town with good restaurants and it was a great little first stop.
From La Rochelle we drove down to Toulouse where we stayed a couple nights in "La Cour des Consuls Hôtel & Spa", which again was close to all the sights, had a Michelin restaurants on site, and a valet parking in a little forecourt in the middle of the hotel.
I enjoyed Toulouse, but the city itself is very car unfriendly, and parking looked like a nightmare, so I'm glad we had reserved parking here (€ 36, a night).
After a couple days in 'the city' I wanted to relax on a beach somewhere to chill and enjoy my birthday and have a few drinks.
We looked at Narbonne, Angles-sur-mer, and Banyuls-sur-mer but ended up going for a place called "Le Barcarès" , which is right on the beach and less busy.
It's about 120 miles (2 hours) away from Toulouse and we stayed in a place called "Domaine Le Courti" which is a 'Adults only' guesthouse with 5 separate suits, private parking, a large pool and 5 minutes walk from the beach.
We spend a few lovely days doing nothing, bar laying on the beach and/or by the pool and had some lovely meals in the town.
The plan was to drive from here straight to Andorra, which is about a 100 miles West from here, however following some posts on the forum another PH'er suggested some roads South (Spanish side) that were really good, so we went South along the coast and drove the N260 towards Riphol (where we stopped for a quick coffee) which was epic.
Stunning roads sweeping through the mountains mixed with hairpin bends and long straights.
So much fun and so empty as well, especially compared to my Alpine trip. think I only overtook 4 or 5 cars in the space of like 4 hours driving.
After our detour via Riphol we then went North again and drove into Andorra, stopping in their capital Andorra La Ville for some sightseeing and another great meal.
We then left Andorra for our hotel in Llavorsí (near Sort) ready for a day of driving the following day.
We stayed in "Hotel Riberies & SPA" which had a pool and private underground parking.
The next day would be our 2nd 'driving' day, and I researched the various routes, both through France and Spain I wanted to do online, which included :
- Port de la Bonaigua
- Col Du Portilon
- Arreau
- Col D'aspin
- Col du Tourmalet
- Col du Soulour
- Col d'Aubisque
- Col du Pourtalet
Though I think after doing the first couple we took a detour back into Spain to enjoy some more of the N260 so we might have missed one or two of those out.
I found a couple pictures online from an organised tour which had some more information on them including a couple photo opportunities on the map
We spend most of today driving with a couple stops for coffee/lunch in some little towns we came across and again the roads were amazing, had a decent speed limit (which often was a challenge to reach) and again were so quite compared to the Swiss Alps.
We finished our driving down in Jaca, and stayed in a hotel called "Hotel & Spa Real Badaguás Jaca" which again had private underground parking and a swimming pool, and they had a very good restaurant as well.
Our final destination was San Sabastian which was a 130 mile (2.5 hour drive) away from our hotel, but the Sat Nav wanted to take us mainly over the A21 motorway, however we ignored this and instead went the scenic route along the N240 which again was stunning, had some great twisties in it, and ran past a couple of beautiful lakes and was so much nicer then that motorway route.
We wanted to stay in the old town in San Sebastian and close to the beaches and finding secure hotel parking wasn't easy so we picked a hotel that was next to a underground car park which worked out fine.
We absolutely loved San Sebastian and were in foodie heaven, trying all the various Pinxtos (small tapas still dishes) bars and even went for a swim in the sea.
The hotel was called "Hotel Villa Katalina" and was right next door to "parking Buen Pastor".
Instead of driving all the way back up into France we decided to take the ferry from Spain back to Portsmouth. There's one from Santander and one from Bilboa, and the later one suites us best so we took that one.
Bilboa is only 70 miles from San Sabastian so it takes less then 1.5 hour and it's a nice place to explore as well.
The route from San Sebastian to Bilboa was mainly motorway, but even that was fun as they had loads of 3 lane hairpin bends, which had advisery speeds of 60 to 80 km/h (for the bends) alongside the actual limit of 120 km/h still, and because it's a tollroute it wasn't busy, so I actually quite enjoyed going from hairpin into hairpin at 120 km/h
Our Ferry left at 19:00 and arrived back in the UK the next day at 21:00, so you got a night and a whole day on the boat, but it was really enjoyable.
The cabins were nice and came with Video-on-demand (streaming films/series) there a few restaurants, a cinema and we had booked access to the C club lounge, which had complimentary snacks, drinks (including wine) and meals through your journey and I was impressed with the quality of the food so I'd definitely recommend booking that lounge if you do this journey.
In total I think we'd spend about € 70, on the French toll roads, and I'd ordered one of the Emovis Tags which you attach to your windscreen and takes automatic payment and the barrier opens as soon as you pull up. There's a few companies that do this but this one is UK based so setting up the payment details for it was easy.
The only downside is this one doesn't do Spanish toll roads, but then we only came across two of those and you just pay when you enter them and that's it.
https://www.emovis-tag.co.uk/
And as with my previous trip, most of the driving photo's are taken with my little Gopro (type) camera which is a Akaso V50 and comes with a little bluetooth button which I've velcro'd next to the steering wheel, so whenever I wanted a photo (or video) of the scenery you just press the button and that's it.
On the last trip we ran it of the batteries but that wasn't ideal (having to change them mid drive) so this year I bought of these multi phone charger things of amazon to plug into the 12V cigarette lighter and then kept both our phone's charged as well as the camera via the USB port.
We did 1500 miles in total spread over 2 weeks and 6 hotels and despite being able to proper push the car on the hairpin roads, I think I actually enjoyed the roads like the N260 more and would happily go back to them to explore more of Spain.
Any questions about the routes and/or hotels etc feel free the ask!
Edited by Medic-one on Thursday 25th July 12:04
fourstardan said:
That looks like a great trip.
Not sure I'd be wanting to do it on a manual gearbox thats for sure!
Unbelievable that someone thinks a proper road trip like this would be better in an automatic rather than a manual car.Not sure I'd be wanting to do it on a manual gearbox thats for sure!
Good write up, OP, am thinking of a similar trip in a somewhat older Porsche in 25 or 26.
fourstardan said:
That looks like a great trip.
Not sure I'd be wanting to do it on a manual gearbox thats for sure!
I know it's not quite the same, but bar a bit of M25 motorway congestion on the way out the whole journey has been done in 'manual mode' with the PDK steering wheel peddles. I just don't have a clutch pedal Not sure I'd be wanting to do it on a manual gearbox thats for sure!
Porsche-worm said:
i am going to sit down later with a coffee and read it properly, but looks great at a quick glance.
Mods maybe move this to the Porsche or Holidays section as i dont think roads gets as much views and this thread is worth getting a better exposure.
That makes sense. Mods maybe move this to the Porsche or Holidays section as i dont think roads gets as much views and this thread is worth getting a better exposure.
Might try and get it to the Holiday section, though think the moderators are the only ones that can move topics.
SapperD said:
Great write up. I was inspired by your EU trip report so was looking forward to this one.
N260 is great isn't. I said you'd enjoy it ??
It was an awesome road, and so different in places so I'm glad we added that strech you recommended, especially that Collada de Tosses part!N260 is great isn't. I said you'd enjoy it ??
Though initially we had planned to go straight from Le Barcares to Andorra and the wife was looking forwards to shopping, you should have seen her face when I said "So.... this guy from the internet recommended this road, and it's gonna add a few hours to our journey so we won't get to Andorra for a while"...
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