[Giri]

Time for new depressing landscapes as brisavoine states. Pics were taken on the 22nd of December 2007. Let's begin with the "Black" tour.

The village of Monassut : we now enter Vic-Bilh and its hills.

Abandoned farms constitute the main landscape ...

Vic-Bilh is made of large valleys (called arribèras in Gascon) with the Pyrenees in the background :

Simacourbe :

New houses imitate vernacular architecture :

Escurès (from Basque eskurr- meaning oak):

Séméacq-Blachon :

The Castle of Blachon (a Gascon form for Iberian Blasco) with its pigeon house (too heavily restaured, I miss its former decay) :

Séméacq (meaning : Semen's property):

Moncaup (meaning : Bald Mount):

Pediment craze :

Always the mountains of Bigorre :

We leave Béarn and we now enter Rivière-Basse (Hautes-Pyrénées) with a large agricultural valley :

The border :

Backlighting prevents us from admiring a splendid view on the mountains :

Lascazères (notice the subtle change in the architecture):

Madiran deserves a thread of its own : just a glimpse.

Coming back in Béarn with some houses in Crouseilles (we'll see more of Crouseilles in the "Red" tour) :

The Larcis valley :

Next : end of the "Black" tour and the shorter "Red" tour.

 

[eklips]

The architecture looks very northern on a lot of photos here.