Who Are We ?
In 1984 a small walking holiday company was created, based in the beautiful Val d’Azun in the heart of the French Pyrenees. This company, named « La Balaguère » after the warm breeze that blows upwards from the Sahara to the Pyrenees, offered guided walking trips led by a small group of friends with a huge passion for the mountains.
Little by little La Balaguère expanded and more than 35 years later we help over 13,000 people every year enjoy walking and cycling holidays in the Pyrenees and further afield, to the most unspoilt areas of the world.
In 2018 we launched a new and exciting project. Purely Pyrenees is the English language branch of our business, offering self-guided and guided trips, walking and cycling from Spring to Autumn and snowshoeing in the Winter. Using our decades of experience we created a new range of holidays designed for English speakers who come, maybe for the first time, to experience the best the Pyrenees has to offer. Our focus is always to provide highlights, iconic places to visit, wonderful itineraries, authentic hotels and, of course, tremendous cuisine.
Purely Pyrenees and La Balaguère are now owned by the UCPA (Union des Centres Sportifs de Plein Air) which is a non-profit organisation in France that specialises in making outdoor sports holidays available for all. We are still based where we have always been, in the Pyrenean village of Arrens-Marsous.
We are very proud of our Pyrenean chain and of the knowledge that we have of it, amassed over years of providing guided and self-guided holidays. You can be sure that if you travel with us we will do everything we can to make sure you have a wonderful trip.
This was a really wonderful trip. We had mostly great weather, thankfully. We especially loved Maison Sempe - Sylvie and Jean-Paul were wonderful hosts, the food was great, and the dinner time conversation was a lot of fun. We also really appreciated that your team was available on the phone - there were only one or two glitches that were all taken care of quickly when we called, and we especially appreciated getting the pick-up from Lac d¹Estaing two hours early because it had just started to rain as we got there and it would have been pretty miserable lingering by the lake in the rain. We got smart the next day and adjusted our timing so that we were able to stay longer in the refuge d¹illheou listening to 3 men singing and drinking genepi rather than arriving too early at the pick-up on a similarly rainy day :-) After that the weather improved and your timings were right on as we made many photo stops and lingered over picnics. Again, a truly great trip, thanks,