St Malo to Orba via Pyrenees - route help

[Dave56]

Planning to travel to the Orba valley in Spain via ferry to St Malo next May and would like to take in the Pyrenees as I've never been before.
I am looking at doing two overnight stops en-route.
I was hoping that the more experienced foreign travellers out there could advice me on possible route's and perhaps advice on overnight accomodation.
Any help or advice would be gratefully received.

 

[Canuck]

great campsite with a pool about 80 clicks into the n260 heading east to west. Are you camping or looking for hotels?

 

[Dave56]

great campsite with a pool about 80 clicks into the n260 heading east to west. Are you camping or looking for hotels?

Sorry Canuck, but I'm afraid that camping is a thing of the past for me and my spine....!
I'll be looking for reasonable priced hotels, upto about £50 per night.

 

[Canuck]

Ahhh... well looks like I can't help. Good luck. I tend to just drive until I want to stop then start looking for a place to stay... haven't gone wrong yet!

 

[mrsroynie]

Don't know Orba (or very much at all about Spain, if I'm honest), but we're in the Pyrenees, so I had a look on Map Source. The obvious motorway route seems to take you down the Atlantic coast over the Spanish border near St. Jean de Luz (lovely old-fashioned French seaside resort) and then South East via Pamploma (home of the Bull Run, 6-14 July). Then my route scoots off South, away from the Pyrenees. So, in fact you wouldn't be seeing much of the Pyrenees at all ...

On the other hand, if you didn't want to follow the coastal route through France you could cut South East after Bordeaux and head down towards Tarbes (bringing you a bit closer to my neck of the woods). This is the heart of the Midi-Pyrenees region with some lovely mountain roads and I know that there are a couple of fellow GSers who advertise biker-friendly B&B accommodation in the Lourdes area (Oliwoof) and the Val d’Aran (Bertiebe). From Lourdes you could cross the Spanish border via the Tunnel de Bielsa and via the Val d’Aran, you cross at Les on the N125. (These folk are practically on our doorstep. We're bikeless this summer due to building work but, coincidentally, we’ll be doing a Spanish supermarket run that way this afternoon! )

 

[mrsroynie]

From Michelin ’80 virées à moto’

Here's a nice little tour for which I can take no credit. I'm sure the book is available in English, but I could provide a little more detail if you were interested. The route takes in a lot of the roads used by the Tour de France, and provides some lovely mountain riding and spectacular scenery:

 

[Dave56]

Really appreciate that Mrsroynie thanks........

 

[Hman]

Here's a nice little tour for which I can take no credit. I'm sure the book is available in English, but I could provide a little more detail if you were interested. The route takes in a lot of the roads used by the Tour de France, and provides some lovely mountain riding and spectacular scenery:

nice route could you post a link so we could all get the mapscource file. thanks

Hman

 

[mrsroynie]

nice route could you post a link so we could all get the mapscource file. thanks

Hman

My pleasure. It took me a while to work out how, but this should work:

Le Bearn Circuit

P.S. I've tweaked the route illustrated above a bit as I noticed MapSource had taken a couple of short-cuts that missed some of the good stuff!