I don't know whether it will still apply in 2014, but in September 2013 we were trying to get to Lourdes, and some access routes were only open for certain hours during the day. There is a great deal of flood damage in the whole area, and fleets of huge wagons travel up and down every day removing forests of tree trunks, and the incredible amount of building and natural debris which is still around after the storms of June 2013. The roads are closed for several hours each moring, as the lorries go up the valley, and then again in the afternoon as they come back down loaded with debris. Looking at the valleys higher up than Lourdes it may take years to clear the debris of the remains of houses hanging on to the hillsides, forests of trees washed down the hillsides, and loads of buildings washed away down to the bottom of the valleys. We were amazed by the amount of damage nature at her worst can inflict on an area.
