Fawlty Towers a la France

Before I get to today, let me tell you about the hotel last night! It was a family run place and when we arrived they insisted we were the Marmot cycling holiday group who only required 6 rooms rather than the CTC group who required 11 rooms. Finally sorted although this was definitely a hotel that had seen better days ( or at least you would hope it had). However ignoring peculiarities like doors that didn't close properly, it was the people who were the Fawlty Towers element. Madam was an old crone who looked like a bottle of sour milk and she appeared to run the place with only the help of her aged parents, her mother on a crutch trying to carry trays of glasses and her father who had severe difficulty counting out 5 euros in change. Anyway our first attempt was to buy 2 soft drinks, at the extortionate price of €4.40. I stupidly gave the grandfather a 10 euro note and then waited for about 10 minutes while he handed me 60 cents from the till and then went round all the other members of his family trying to scrounge 5 euros, which I eventually got in small change from a variety of sources.

Later, to celebrate our trip up the Tourmalet, we decided to order one beer and a glass of white wine. When I asked for 'une verre de vin blanc' she looked totally horrified and said in a loud voice 'blanc! Blanc!'and gave a very Gallic shrug before she said loudly, 'rose!' in a tone of voice that brooked no argument..... I said I would just have the beer, but she was adamant I had to have two beers. The only way round that was to hand her the exact money for one beer and stand my ground. She served the meal herself and all the plates were deposited with force - but against all the odds the meal was tremendous, course after course of home cooked food, soup, melon, jambon de pays, pork with cheesy pasta, blueberry tart and more cheese. Everyone was hungry to start, but not at the end of that!

Today we had a shorter day, just 45 miles, 2 cols and 5,500 ft of ascent. There were two cols, one straight out from the hotel - the Col de Peyresourde - and the Col de Portillon later on. There was a possible extra ascent today before the Peyresourde, the Peyregaude, which of course the Mechanic and I did as the road had virtually no traffic and the views in the clear morning air were tremendous. It got hot and humid going up the second col and we were glad to get up before we had lunch - most of the others had lunch in the valley and then struggled a bit getting up.

The place we are staying tonight is 'interesting', despite all the rooms on the trip supposedly being en suite we are sharing a shower and a loo with another couple, with the interesting addition of none of the doors closing, apart from the loo where the door closes and locks - but then cannot be opened by the occupant. We thought we might have to cut the Mechanic out!  We do have a sink in our room, but the plug is jammed in and no water comes out of the taps........

Meant to add about last night's place that when the leader went to pay this morning the card machine didn't work and the insisted on €880 in cash. We were about to have a whip round, but in the end she went down the road to the nearby town and managed to get the cash out on her credit card.

Pictures tonight are en route and the cyclists washing line at the end of the day