Pyrenees vacation - Banyuls sur Mer (beach)

On the fourth day of hiking in the Pyrenees, we went way out of our way (and still firmly believe the travel company's directions are at fault!).  So rather than 5 hours, 600m ascent, and 12km... we went 10 hours, 1200m ascent, and almost 25km... finally arriving at Ceret, France.

According to the travel itinerary, we had one more day of hiking to go, from Ceret to the Mediterranean coast.  However, after Day 4, Frau A was beat.  And since we had left the taller Pyrenees and were now in the foothills heading towards the sea, we decided to just take a short taxi to our final destination, Banyuls sur Mer.  So our hiking/hitchhiking/taxi path, in the end, looked something like this:

The weather continued to be great, and when we arrived at the hotel this was the view over town:

Above, you can see their small, crescent-shaped beach.  Of course we headed straight there.

Below is the view in the opposite direction, from the beach back towards the hotel (taken later in the day -- you can see the moon already visible in the sky at dusk):

The view from the hotel towards town was just as nice in the evening, with town lights against the Pyrenees foothills.  Banyuls is large enough to have plenty to do, but still small and comfortable.

The walk along the water towards the beach is nice.  This mosaic (picture below) was just outside the tourist office.  There were also dive shops, boat rentals and tours, and small tourist shops of course.  Unfortunately, since this was early October, many dive shops were closed -- or you had to call for them to come in.  We decided to stick with the plan and hit the beach.

While at the beach, I went for a swim.  Frau A stayed in the warm sun (the water was pretty cold!).  She snapped this photo with my head just above the water (towards the right of the frame).  In addition to the houses in the background, you can see a small terraced vinyard.  More on these in a future post.

This bridge/wall was one border of the beach -- you can see it from our hotel photo too.  The bricks are built around the rock foundation, and give way to the last tip of land forming the inlet.  I walked along this to dry off.

After drying off and warming up again, we decided to relax with some miniature golf!  It is vacation, after all.  We don't love the concrete "greens" but the view with the Mediterranean in the background was great.

At this point, I was in the lead... but Frau A came back and conquered me in the end.  Ugh!

Our deal was that the loser buys ice cream -- so I treated, and we indulged at one of the stands along the beach.  We both tried chocolate, but my second scoop was hazelnut, Frau A's was mint chip:

Ironically, we saw the sign in town marking one end of the major GR 10 hiking path through the Pyrenees.  If only the directions from the travel company were as well marked as this!

As luck would have it, this was the last day of beach-weather that year (this was early October 2011).  The next day, the weather turned blustery -- colder and with strong winds.  We were fortunate to have one good day on the sand.

We had two more days in Banyuls after 4 days of hiking and one on the beach, and there were plenty of things to keep us entertained yet relaxed... (details coming soon in more posts soon)