When we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and was living in Spain, my husband's boss offered us a flat in France for a holiday as a gift. Off we set one April morning as
naive and ignorant as it possible to be with our bags packed in the car and wearing our usual summer clothing. 'We'll just drive through Aragon' said my dear one in his wisdom.
Well we did eventually but had forgotten, or never knew that beautiful Aragon covers
18,000 square miles of lush green orchards and vineyards and by the time we arrived at Jaca where we had arranged to stay for the night we could hardly walk. When Catherine of Aragon was sent to this country to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales and later King Henry theVIII she is reported to have said 'Why does everyone treat me like a nobody here when
my Father's Kingdom in Spain is larger than this whole country?' Why indeed?
When we arrived in Jaca which is close to the border between Spain and France we saw all the houses had steep sloping roofs and quickly registered the many cars passing by with skis on the roof rack. Our journey into France began to look a bit challenging.
Next day we set off to the Sompas which was to take us over the Pyranees and down into France and as we climbed the snow alongside the road was piled higher than our car at each side and all our summer clothing (all we had) was piled layer on layer on our bodies.
What a relief it was to arrive at the check point and find ourselves driving down into a rainy France.
After our wonderful holiday we set off back up the Col de Pourtalet with a perfect view of the Aragonese Alps (pictured) and we talked about the feelings of the Allied airman of which we knew at least 2 who had travelled from one safe house to another until they climbed over the Pyranees into the neutral Spain and onwards back to England....but that's a story for another day.
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