We drove through Lourdes towards a towering wall of rock where our night would be spent in Gavarnie. We arrived just before dark, checked in, and then made our way down to the cozy tavern in the lobby for dessert and beer.
The following morning we awoke early, ate a hearty breakfast at the motel, and made our way to a hiking trail nearby. There was a full service mountain hut up where we were hiking but it was $500 per night and a whole ordeal getting to it, so we decided to just stay in the village, save $350, and hike in. I think this was my favorite part (along with the cable car) of our trip and we had an early enough start to have it mostly to ourselves. By the time it warmed up a bit and we were on our way back to the village, we passed hoards of people hiking in.
From Gavarnie, we found some steep switchbacks on Google Maps and some mountain passes that are part of the Tour de France and spent the afternoon exploring on our way to Andorra.
We drove to Andorra for the night and stayed at a really fancy hotel and ordered room service and ate pasta and drank wine in our massive bathtub.
We ended up in Siguenza for the night and booked a motel that was an old converted castle. It was awesome!
We checked into our room, dropped off our stuff and cleaned up, and then headed out on the town for dinner.
Our final day was spent sleeping in, driving the rest of the way to Madrid for dinner, a shower, and an early night for the early morning flight.