What was involved in the trip?
The trip is based in a town called Benasque in the Pyrenees. I flew in to Barcelona. It’s about a three-and-a-half hour transfer from the airport to get to the Pyrenees, but with beautiful scenery along the way. We stopped for lunch and a walk to stretch our legs, so the journey was very enjoyable.
On this trip you go to a cute little town - it really looks like a proper mountain village - and you spend the week doing lots of different activities.
What was your personal highlight?
I think my highlight was canyoning - that was such good fun, and it was in a stunning area as well. I also really enjoyed the town that I was staying in and the atmosphere that it had. There were plenty of good places to eat in the evenings.
For the benefit of people who don’t know what canyoning is, could you describe this activity?
Well, people might also have heard this activity called ‘river walking’ before. Sometimes canyoning involves being looped onto things with carabiners (and always being on a line because you might be quite high up), but actually the canyoning on this trip was much more gentle than that.
I didn’t need to be strapped in, although I did have a harness because there were a couple of abseils, which were really good fun! It was mostly walking and splashing along the river and doing natural water slides and a couple of jumps. But all the slides and jumps were optional, which was nice because I’m a little bit of a scaredy-cat sometimes with these things! It was great to have the option to do them if I wanted to, or be able to say no if I didn’t.
Then there was a bit of floating involved, but not really much swimming because the wetsuits were really buoyant. At the end, we had a picnic and there was an area which had some much higher jumps and slides that people could do if they wanted to. I did one of the slightly higher slides (because I’m very brave!) and then I happily sat and ate my sandwiches while I watched everybody else do the much higher jumps!
So it sounds like it’s a good trip for the ‘scaredy-cats’ and the adrenaline junkies. What age group do you think this trip is suitable for?
The canyoning is suitable for children aged 6 and up, so it’s very family-friendly. But like I say, it’s not boring at all! Even if you have more thrill-seeking older teenagers, they’ll enjoy jumping and sliding and just generally having a good time in the water, and then you’ve got the bigger jumps and slides at the end for anyone who feels like they’ve not quite had their adrenaline fix!
Great. Let’s talk about some of the other activities now. What was the white-water rafting like?
I loved the rafting! They were really nice grade II rapids, so a good bit of fun, a good bit of bouncing around on the river, but nothing too scary! And there were plenty of stops along the way for a bit of swimming and more jumps.
It was actually the younger kids in the boat who particularly enjoyed jumping. They were scrambling up onto the rocks and launching themselves off several times over, while some of us slightly less adventurous adults just sat happily in the boat and watched. The scenery was amazing too, so the activity offered a fantastic combination of being able to look around at the views and have quite a relaxing, pleasant time, while also experiencing the thrill of going down the rapids.
Can you tell us a bit more about the scenery?
Yes of course. You’re right in the heart of the Pyrenees. There’s actually a stunning guided walk that goes further into the mountains, and from there you can see Mount Aneto, which is the highest peak in the Pyrenees!
You get really beautiful views of the mountains and waterfalls on the walk, then you have a lovely picnic by a lake, it’s just wonderful scenery. It’s very green as well.
You did some cycling while you were out there, didn’t you?
Yes. We started with a nice, easy, flat cycle around the lake. The tour guide adjusts the itinerary depending on how adventurous the group is and how confident they are on the bikes. So it can be quite easy if that’s what everybody is feeling and preferring, but we decided we would have a bit of an adventure!
We travelled upwards through the Conques forest, then had an exciting cycle down through the dirt tracks - which was really good fun. I only fell off once, but it was into a big pile of mud, so it was ok!
Sounds like fun! This is quite an active itinerary, do you need to be very fit?
I’m not a very fit person, and I was very happy on the trip. I felt like it was challenging, but not too difficult. It wasn’t so difficult that I wasn’t enjoying it.
I feel that out of our active range of holidays, it’s one of the slightly gentler trips when it comes to how physically fit you need to be. It’s accessible for many different fitness levels.
Lovely, let’s move onto food! What was the cuisine like and what local dishes did you get to try?
Oh wow, the food is really special! They keep to Spanish time out there. It worked well, because activities would take place in the morning, then we would have several hours dedicated to having lunch at our leisure. Dinner was available until quite late at night - some places started serving at around 7.30pm and would be open late at night, which always suited me.
A lot of restaurants in Benasque do a ‘menu of the day’, which is a set menu with a few different courses. It comes with a drink, a dessert, some coffee, bread, that sort of thing. You have a few different options to choose from there. There’s a lot of very traditional cuisine, such as hearty stews, and there’s also a lot of meat. It was possible to be a vegetarian, but you do have to let them know!
In addition to the local options, there were a lot of places doing food like burgers, pizza and pasta.
How early did the morning activities start?
A couple of the activities started at 8.30am and some of the others kicked off at 9.30am. You would get picked up from the hotel, and the longest journey time was about 45 minutes.
It's reasonably early starts, but the reason is that there is usually better weather in the morning. If it's going to rain in the mountains, it's usually in the afternoon, but even then it would generally only be a short, sharp rainy spell. Another reason they also do activities in the morning is because it’s cooler. Also, then you also get all afternoon to relax, and the hotel has a pool which is very nice.
Could you tell us a bit more about the hotel?
On this trip we would normally stay at the Sommos Aneto, but I stayed at the sister hotel, the Sommos Banasque. They’re very similar, and I had the chance to look around both. They both have swimming pools, the Banasque has a spa as well, which was welcome after a morning of muddy cycling!
The rooms are very comfortable and many have views out over the mountains. The facilities are excellent and modern, and you get a great breakfast in the morning to set you up for the day. They are so close as well, you’re just across the road from everything that’s going on in Banasque. The location is perfect.
What kind of kids do you think would particularly enjoy this trip?
I think kids with an adventurous attitude. They don’t need to be skilled in anything, they don’t need to have been climbing before or canyoning before - for the cycling obviously they would need to know how to ride a bike - but with things like the canyoning and climbing, they get full instruction. So as long as they’re happy to give things a go, and they want to try some new activities, then I think they’ll really enjoy it.
Find out more about our Active Pyrenees holiday, or you can speak to our team today.
