Aug 23 - Sunday - Bagnenes-de-Luchon (France)

Deb didn’t sleep well because the brass bands played until midnight. I woke up once because an ambulance was in the street outside with its light on. Other than that it was interesting to wake up in a really really old house with floorboards hundreds of years old and plumbing that mostly worked. 

Luchon is a couple centuries old town (yup, BC kind of old) and it currently has a population of about 2,700 people. This weekend is a big deal and it attracts a lot of people to see the flower floats and brass bands and to drink a little too much. When we walk the narrow old side streets we can almost imagine the town a hundred years ago. We think what put it on the map were the hot baths since they have some kind of thermo-hydro thing going on, and they built lots of entertaining things in the late 1800’s like a funicular and parks and baths. Some of these things still exist and some have crumbled away. Luchon is the last stop on the train so that was good luck on their part.

But this weekend all the restaurants and bakeries and bars and cafes were booming. A small boulangerie across the street had a line out the door this morning so it must be a popular spot for the locals.

We had breakfast in the AirBnB, a special giant muffin of some kind (tourte aux myrtilles) that fed us all, then spent the morning walking the kids (wearing them out, an endless job). The brass bands sobered up in time for the 10:00 schedule. There were 4 bands roaming around and they would assemble far enough from each other so they could not hear the other bands. There were old restored cars parked on thcarousel lunch but we forgot all about that when we went back to hear more bands and wade through all the people again.

We decided to catch the 2:30 train which worked out perfectly. The floats, pulled by old tractors, began their parade right in front of the train station so we got to see all the floats while waiting for the train.

The train was kind of full but we all found seats and it was a two hour ride back to Toulouse with one train transfer in the middle.

We took the Metro back to the hotel and said our goodbyes. Jake and Nath said the kids collapsed after a nice bath, and so did we.