Once past the Tournaboup area, the D918 climbs in earnest over denuded slopes to the Col du Tourmalet, at 2115m the highest road pass in the French Pyrenees. Even in summer it's Apt to be a desolate, windy spot, flanked by a sporadically functioning café, and a rough-hewn, nude statue of the Unknown Cyclist, commemorating the first passage of the Tour through here in 1910. By the statue, a dirt road meanders off in the direction of the Pic du Midi, though the public can no longer use this to drive up to the observatory at the top, but must visit either on foot or by téléphérique (June–Sept daily 9.30am–4.30pm; €22.10, including admission to astronomical museum) from La Mongie. The venerable observatory, continuously staffed since opening in 1880 and still a serious research facility, long resisted commercialization but has now bowed to the inevitable with an on-site astronomical museum.From the col the road descends past La Mongie, continuing through lovely woods of spruce, pine and beech, down into the gentle green Vallée de Campan.
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