Even after an hour or so in Luchon, we could see it was going to be an adventure. Not yet being the ski season, many hotels, shops, etc here are closed so, when we went to the tourist office and asked her to recommend something not too expensive, she also suggested 'open' as a criterion. Which is fair enough, I think.
Anyway, our main criterion was actually wifi, internet-starved as we are. Which led us on a merry march around town, to many (shut) hotels. We were getting more and more desperate, and were just leaving one which had an unattended and unlit reception desk, when a man came along and said "Mesdemoiselles?" This somehow resulted in us having to go through to the attached restaurant to ask about the possibility of a room. Which was weird, because the waitress looked very surprised to see us there, so I don't quite know what was going on. Fortunately, they had a room for us.
As for the wifi, well, we couldn't get it to work from our room.
Gave up and went to lunch, as we were both really hungry. Had lunch at what I would consider to be a pretty typical French corner restaurant: both had the menu of salad, entrecote of beef with chips, and a dessert. I also was unable to resist the 'vin chaud' (mulled wine), even though it wasn't on the menu (waiter seemed a bit upset). For dessert, I heard 'fromage' and decided to order that. Turns out it was fromage blanc, which equated to plain yoghurt. Never mind. I was healthy...
Next mission was a wander around the town (without our extra baggage this time). Lots of photos were taken as it is very picturesque! Wandered pretty much up to the base of the mountains and into the snow, and noticed it was only about 8km to Spain. It was tempting to keep going, but we decided we weren't prepared enough to do an Edmund Hillary across the Pyrenees.
Chilly Kiwi...It was with great disappointment that we discovered the spas were closed. Kate, especially, had been looking forward to a nice soak! Had we been a couple of weeks later, we would have been right for that and for the gondola thingee up the mountains, but never mind.
Luckily, back at the hotel restaurant, we were able to "remonter la morale" (get our spirits back up) with a flavoured hot chocolate (one caramel and one hazelnut) and a crepe (one Nutella and one chocolate). This was definitely worth doing! So tasty. Then, it was clearly time to do nothing for a couple of hours (once it had been established that the wifi was just not going to work).
Braving the cold, we ventured out of our hotel in search of dinner. We were slightly distracted by a patisserie, and stopped to get dessert (oh, the sugary goodness of caramel millefeuilles and whatever the creamy/moussy/pastry thing that Kate got). While trying to find a supermarket, we came across a pizza place and a Moroccan restaurant, and ended up choosing the latter. Good price, good food (Kate was stoked to have some veggies!!!) and we could eat there.
Once we got back to the hotel, we decided to go and have a drink (a blackberry Kir each) and then decided to move into the back room with these to watch the rugby. The man who was running the bar was busy explaining to everyone "they're New Zealanders." Watched the Aussies beat France, and ate pastries. Good times.
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