Waiting for the start of the French Open, my colleague Charles Bricker writes:

Around 7:30 on Wednesday I flicked on the six-inch TV set bolted to the wall of my otherwise wonderful little hotel room in Tarascon-sur-Ariege and was jolted almost immediately by the sound of the G word on the morning newscast.

Greve.

Which in French means “strike.”

Once again, for I believe the 1,457,677th time, French railway workers were declaring a work stoppage, at midnight that evening. Maybe they’re chronically underpaid. I don’t know. What I do know is that they are the single most significant vacation killers in France.

My plan, after two spectacular days in the Pyrenees, had been to drive the 100 kilometers north to Toulouse, dump the rental car and hop the 1:43 p.m. train to Bordeaux, stay overnight and ride the TGV fast train three hours into Paris to go to work on Thursday.

No problem with getting to Bordeaux. The strike wouldn’t begin until midnight. But I had visions of my Paris train being shut down for the next two days and my editor growling over the delay in getting that Sunday story on Rafael Nadal.

Clearly, I needed a Plan B, and that was to drive to Toulouse and flag a same-day train to Paris before the conductors hit the bricks.

What luck. I never needed to change plans. The TGV service from Bordeaux to Paris was one of the few lines not to be interrupted by the strike and I booked a 7:30 a.m. seat. Greatly relieved, it was much easier now to relive, in my memory and in numerous photos, two and a half days in those spectacular mountains that separate France from Spain.

I got to the Pyrenees on Sunday afternoon and, despite a drizzle, walked for a couple hours in the Parc National des Pyrenees among what must have been hundreds of waterfalls.

I’ve stood by Yosemite Falls and seen Niagara. Nothing can match the speed and power of the melted snow blasting down from the Pyrenees. How do you estimate the speed? Perhaps 70, 80 mph. It was staggering, but there was so much more to come on Monday and Tuesday.

Staying in a B&B just north of the ski village of Cauterets, I backtracked to another two-lane mountain/valley road that ends in the village of Gavarnie.

And where the road ends, the Cirque de Gavarnie hiking trail begins, taking you, in a bit over an hour, up about 3,000 meters to nirvana, a place where you’re surrounded by patches of snow and sensational views of roaring cascades. Cold never felt so good. You stand there doing 360 degrees, looking at some of the greatest natural splendors that have touched your life.

I exited the B&B on Tuesday morning and drove east, through an unending number of villages and past interminable “Centre Ville” signs to Tarascon, alighting, without reservation, at the Hotel de la Poste to take a clean, well-lighted room with shower and free Wifi, overlooking the Ariege River, for 42 Euros (about $65) a night. This is the south of France at the right time – when the weather is good and the prices are not quite in high season.

An hour and a half on Wednesday afternoon was spent on a tour of the Grotte de Nioux, stepping with flashlight in hand through the heavily protected caves that have been a French national treasure since 1906. In the Salon Noir, about 800 meters from the entrance, are the 15,000-year-old drawings of bison and ibex on the cave walls.

This was not merely a trip highlight. It was a lifetime highlight, a plunge back into the Paleolithic era.

It was all too good. It’s also time to go to work. Boss: Nadal is on the way.