Driving the Route du Tourmalet D-918
 

In the second half of May, we'll be driving from Bilbao to Barcelona, Spain thru the Pyrenees on both the French and Spanish sides. On the French side, we would like to drive the Route du Tourmalet, route D-918, from Luz-St. Sauveur to Bareges and then on through to La Mongie and eventually hooking up with the D-929 south near Arreau to head down to Bielsa, Spain.

Question: On the viamichlin online map, there is a short section of the D=918 that is marked as "difficult or dangerous"--maybe 4 or 5 kms.

Difficult doesn't bother me much, especially that short a section, as long as they don't mean something like it's one lane and you might have to back up to a turnout to allow a tour bus to get through or it is so narrow that in a brief moment of inattention while a car goes by from the other direction you might end up going down a cliff or crunching a fender. But the dangerous part I really don't need to deal with--so if you know this route--how "difficult" or "dangerous" is that section? Thanks.

The road is narrow and with hairpin turns. My first time down the road we got stuck because one driver froze when trying to pass a bus on the outside. But it was not one lane then, and may even have been widened since.

Thanks, Michael. Sounds doable to me.

I do not know how much time you are giving yourself. But if the roads are clear, a detour to the Cirque de Gavarnie is worthwhile.

I think that your description is misleading. Going from Bilbao to Barcelona, you should be reversing your itinerary, starting in Biescas to Laruns, Aucun, Areglès-Gazost, Barèges, col du Tourmalet, Arreau, Bagnères-de-Luchon, Vielha (Spain).

These pictures cover the area in reverse: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...th/4516418688/

In Sapin, try to make a detour to Taüll.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...th/4267106194/

We're planning to travel (with various other sightseeing stops along the way) roughly along this route: Bilbao, San Sebastian, Sare/Ainhoa, Pamplona, Roncesvalles, Ordiarp, Pau, Cauterets, Bareges, Arreau, Bielsa, La Mongie, Vielha, Andorra, Figueres,
Barcelona. We will definitely look into Taull.

In 2012 we stayed in a gite for 2 weeks on the Tourmalet side of the Col d'Aubisque - near Aucun. We drove over the Tourmalet & Aubisque several times & I don't recall any dangerous roads. I got a little nervous when we encountered a camper going the other way - but we survived.

La Mongie isn't any place I would want to visit. Near Cauterets, visit the Pont d'Espagne also. Pau didn't do too much for us. We visited it in about '03 and again in '12.

Stu Dudley

PS - you'll need to watch out for wandering horses, sheep & cows. They have as much right-to-the-road as you have.

Stu Dudley

Yeah, we've been doing some reading on Pau, and we decided to find some interesting place in the countryside for the night.

The Tourmalet did not even open last year until mid July.

Thanks, kerouac. That is certainly useful to know!

www.viamichelin.com takes into account seasonal closings when asking for directions between two points.