CHAPTER 16. SOUTH WEST FRANCE CONT.

We come back to SW France in 1986 as part of 90 days driving around Europe in our new VW Jetta. We are at the border of France and Spain on the Mediterranean (#17) and drive along the Pyrenees and into Andorra, with a return stay at the Hotel Como in Ordino. It is an easy drive down thru Ax-les-Thermes then across a high plateau to Quillan. This time we stay at the Pierre Lys, a small Hotel Restaurant without an elevator, but we are able to make it up the one flight to our room. The Aude River flows behind the hotel on a very pretty site with outdoor tables by the river.

We visit the hospital and see many of the personnel who were there a year earlier. We have dinner at the Elefthériou home one evening and host them at the Rebenty Restaurant the following night.

From Quillan we go west seeing more of the French Pyrenees. We drive to Tarbes where both of the hotels we had preselected are closed, so we drive out of town to the Campanile Gril. This is a chain of US style motels with restaurant where we have stayed many times in France.

After a good buffet breakfast we drive to Pau and park in an underground garage, walk around some then have a good lunch menu at the Champagne Restaurant.

After lunch in Pau we take a tour thru the chateau of Henri IV with a large group; it’s all in French, but very interesting as we see nicely furnished royal chambers and a good museum. We stop at a supermarket on the way out of town for snack materials then drive to Oleron and the Paix Hotel.