Camping Les Okiri

Pyrénées-Atlantiques capital Pau is packed with events and attractions all year long, including food and culture festivals in all seasons, plenty of museums, galleries and shops, and facilities for activities from parkour to parachuting. If you can't be faffed driving/parking there, it's about 35 minutes to Pau by bus, from the stop outside the Baudreix lycée. Take time too just to stroll around the city: Pau's panorama of the Pyrenees and the hillsides of Jurançon from the fab Boulevard des Pyrénées has been hailed as 'the world's most beautiful view of the earth' (as Naples was hailed as the most beautiful of the sea). Start off at the Château de Pau at one end of the 1.8-kilometre boulevard and wander to Parc Beaumont for the most famed Pau views, of the Gave de Pau river in town and the peaks of the Pyrenees to the south. Then zip back for the National Museum in Pau's Château de Pau, the most visited heritage site in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. More Pyrenees highlights are at the famed Pic du Jer, 50 minutes away above Lourdes: take the funicular railway on its sloping route up for 950 metres, then hike one of the paths to the summit.