sinfonia

Is there one?

I have searched the forums and have seen little items here and there about it, but I am trying to figure out how one "does" the Pyrenees, particularly from the Spanish side.

We will be visiting Spain in late September and early October. One of the things we are really looking forward to is visiting the Pyrenees, but we don't really know how to approach planning this.

Ideally, we would like to travel from Barcelona, through Andorra, through the Pyrenees, ending up in San Sebastian/Bilbao/Basque country. But how long should I plan for this trip if we want to actually stay in the Pyrenees some nights? Will this take our entire 12 days? Will it take more than 12 days? How ridiculous will it be to rent an automatic transmission to drive that much? Where do we stay in the Pyrenees? We want to hike, see sheep, enjoy the villages and villagers, have local cheese, enjoy nature, and relax . . . I heard about some sort of "refuge" places where you can stay - are those in on the Spanish side as well? How do we know the best areas to hike? How difficult is the hiking? Is there a better way to get through them than renting a car? If we take a car and then park, then hike, then stay overnight where we are, then hike some more the next day, we will have to go back down to get the car instead of moving on to another area. How else does one do this? If San Sebastian and Bilbao are musts, should we cut out Barecelona, and if so, where should we fly in/out of?

Thank you!