Apartment in Cauterets

We rented the same apartment in Cauterets that we had last year, and it strangely felt like returning to a second home. We knew where stuff was, we knew how it worked, and we knew which boulangerie was best for breakfast.

Jean-Louis and Celine are great hosts, and no-one knows the mountains quite like Jean-Louis - he even has a French Wikipedia page. He says that being in the mountains is about walking and experiencing the wild - not just climbing, and Susan reckons he was quite impressed by the walks we did. We didn't go canyoning, mountain climbing, or on overnight hiking trips with him - we're flatland people, and we do most of our exercise at low altitude. Plus we are embarrasingly unfit compared to our host.

Although the apartment is right in the centre of town, and surrounded by restaurants (our apartment is the balcony immediately above the green umbrella), it's surprisingly quiet at night. All the windows are double glazed and have roll down shutters, and most of the action in the streets is over before midnight.

There's no parking (the bottom photo is our car, but being packed early in the morning for departure) but there is plenty of free long term parking within 5 minutes walk.

It sounds slightly un-ambitious, but we're already thinking of returning next year.