Cauterets

Cauterets
Originally uploaded by M.J.S.

Cauterets comes from an old Roman word for the hot springs on which the town's fortunes are based. There's now a new, and huge, ski-lift, which was supposed to attract a winter skiing crowd. But locals not that there was no snow last year.

The thermal spas are still there, and they specialize in breathing and joint pain. There isn't quite the Romantic palimpsest of the Alps (no Shelley, for example), but Sands, Hugo and even Tennyson have done their bit to put the region on the literary map. Quite a sleepy town, which looks as though its own the verge of either being on the way up, or the way down.

I grabbed a coffee and croissant at the friendly ski-bar cafe, and searched for some camping gas for the MSR stove.