Chateau Urs

We're all feeling a bit weary tonight after a quite magical day on the bike. After a 76 mile day yesterday we covered 90 miles today and matched yesterday's 2800m of climb. The skies also cleared to provide almost continuous sunshine and perfect visibility, although there was a cool breeze blowing so it never got too hot. That might change over the next few days!

For the record, we first climbed the Col de Chioula at 1361m and down to Belesta, where we climbed back to the dramatic Chateau de Montsegur and then down to Montferrier for a very relaxed lunch. I have to admit that there was an extra element to the cycling because I made the schoolboy error this morning of leaving my camera's memory card in the laptop. My mates have fully embraced my need to blip so at every village we were hunting a place which might sell one. We had no luck until we eventually found a supermarket at Lavelanet. It was quite hard passing all this wonderful scenery and being unable to capture it.

From there we took a back road via Roquefixade, which was quite beautiful, to Tarascon for a coke, a coffee, and to watch the end of today's stage of the Tour. From there we backtracked slightly to Bompas to pick up the dramatic Route des Corniches, climbing up through a hidden valley and then traversing high above the valley in which we are staying. This shot shows the view looking south past Chateau Urs.

Final mention must be made of Debbie and Gary here at Pyrenees Haven. The evening meals here have been incredible. They are taking care of us so well here, with lots of good advice about routes. For both cycling and walking this is a fantastic base, with almost limitless options. I can not recommend this destination highly enough for either a full-on training week or a relaxing holiday! I think today we managed to combine training and relaxation rather well.