Montañas - Time for a trip report?
- Thread starter Petri
- Start date
Petri
Senior Insider
That was the parking spot for the first 3-4 hour training hike 
On the third day, we were on the ground and I was looking up -- "I wonder if it would be possible to hike up there.. probably not without a helicopter".
Well, after some serious hiking uphill, things started to look a bit different. Had we known..
Unfortunately we didn't have a helicopter. And things weren't quite flat up there. Nor was the drop covered by trees but anything from rock walls to gorges.
Let's see how the pictures turn out and if there will be a real trip report
On the third day, we were on the ground and I was looking up -- "I wonder if it would be possible to hike up there.. probably not without a helicopter".
Well, after some serious hiking uphill, things started to look a bit different. Had we known..
Unfortunately we didn't have a helicopter. And things weren't quite flat up there. Nor was the drop covered by trees but anything from rock walls to gorges.
Let's see how the pictures turn out and if there will be a real trip report
Petri
Senior Insider
Mike R said:
LOL.. The feeling is mutual
It doesn't come as a surprise that I booked Laura's return flight two days before we left for the trip -- and the last day of accommodation a day before leaving.. Rest of the accommodation was booked a week before and the outgoing flights two weeks before the trip.
Last sunday, while walking around in Barcelona, Laura realized that she didn't print any papers about her return flight -- and I couldn't remember if I had booked flights for her in the first place.
Petri
Senior Insider
As mentioned earlier, this was also the day to start a 6-week vacation so we celebrated to occasion with champagne at the airport.
.. and as it was difficult to get reasonably priced tickets, we spent some frequent flyer miles and got ourselves business class tickets.
With a great crew and service on the 3.5 hour flight, we enjoyed champagne before, during and after the dinner.
.. and despite drinking almost a full bottle of champagne each, we managed to spot the famous Millau Viaduct in France.
A full bottle of champagne does make flying pretty nice experience. Despite the "italian strike" at the Helsinki airport, everything was breeze at both the airports. I think the flight was 20 minutes late but we didn't notice it with all the champagne.
And for the very first time since ages, we actually took the airport bus from the Barcelona airport to the city. Our hotel was next to the Plaça d'Espanya which also happened to be the first stop for the airport bus. Fast, cheap and convenient.
We were staying at the B Hotel, quite a new design hotel with a great roof-top pool area.
Plan for the next ~10 days was quite simple.
For the first weekend Laura and other finns would be attending a Rumba festival with plenty of dance sessions. Meanwhile I would walk around the town a bit, it's been 10 years since the last visit. The festival finished with Havana d'Primera concert which I also attended. Great music, great performers, great audience.
For the next full week we would get ourselves a Mini Cooper Cabrio convertible and drive around a bit. First to the La Rioja wine region for couple of nights and then to the base in a small town of Ainsa in the Pyrenees mountains next to the French border. From there we could drive to the Ordesa and Monte Perdido national parks for great views and hikes of all kinds.
On Sunday we'd return back to Barcelona and on Monday I'll fly back to Helsinki and Laura will stay in town for another week with a friend to study spanish.
.. and as it was difficult to get reasonably priced tickets, we spent some frequent flyer miles and got ourselves business class tickets.
With a great crew and service on the 3.5 hour flight, we enjoyed champagne before, during and after the dinner.
.. and despite drinking almost a full bottle of champagne each, we managed to spot the famous Millau Viaduct in France.
A full bottle of champagne does make flying pretty nice experience. Despite the "italian strike" at the Helsinki airport, everything was breeze at both the airports. I think the flight was 20 minutes late but we didn't notice it with all the champagne.
And for the very first time since ages, we actually took the airport bus from the Barcelona airport to the city. Our hotel was next to the Plaça d'Espanya which also happened to be the first stop for the airport bus. Fast, cheap and convenient.
We were staying at the B Hotel, quite a new design hotel with a great roof-top pool area.
Plan for the next ~10 days was quite simple.
For the first weekend Laura and other finns would be attending a Rumba festival with plenty of dance sessions. Meanwhile I would walk around the town a bit, it's been 10 years since the last visit. The festival finished with Havana d'Primera concert which I also attended. Great music, great performers, great audience.
For the next full week we would get ourselves a Mini Cooper Cabrio convertible and drive around a bit. First to the La Rioja wine region for couple of nights and then to the base in a small town of Ainsa in the Pyrenees mountains next to the French border. From there we could drive to the Ordesa and Monte Perdido national parks for great views and hikes of all kinds.
On Sunday we'd return back to Barcelona and on Monday I'll fly back to Helsinki and Laura will stay in town for another week with a friend to study spanish.
Petri
Senior Insider
Barcelona
Barcelona is a great city. Plenty of green parks, hills, next to the blue mediterrean sea, and usually blessed with perfect weather. This also means that the locals know how to enjoy their life.
Seafood is excellent and there are plenty of great choices. Actually we were very surprised how good selection of fish and other sea creatures were available in the supermarkets and stores, even hundreds of kilometres inlands. Spain does have plenty of great ingredients and some of the foods are superb, but we still prefer the Italian food culture.
Mercat de Sant Josep food hall had the greatest products one can imagine available. I spent every day of the trip wondering if I should a full Iberico leg back home.
Well, I didn't but I did eat Iberico ham every day.
Our hotel and Plaça d'Espanya were next to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and it's Font Màgica, the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc.
Barcelona is known for the Gaudi buildings but with the heat above 30C, I didn't fancy queueing with the other tourists.
They are still building the church. They started building Sagrada Família in 1882.
Like the other top tourist sites, Park Guell was pretty crowded as well.
.. but the street musicians there were worth the climb (mostly outdoor escalators, though).
.. and even the 13 gooses were still there at La Seu Cathedral. Each goose represents one year in the life of the martyr Santa Eulalia, a young girl tortured to death in the 4th century by the Romans for her religion.
And La Ramba, the main walking street in the city, with it's street artists (and scams) was just like we left it 10 years ago.
We left Finland to "escape" the traditional Midsummer festivals. It turned out that on 23rd June they celebrate similar San Juan in Catalonia as well with plenty of traditions. For example people have bonfires and if you jump three times over the bonfire, you will be purified and your problems burned away. It was quite a noisy days at the Plaça d'Espanya.
Barcelona is a great city. Plenty of green parks, hills, next to the blue mediterrean sea, and usually blessed with perfect weather. This also means that the locals know how to enjoy their life.
Seafood is excellent and there are plenty of great choices. Actually we were very surprised how good selection of fish and other sea creatures were available in the supermarkets and stores, even hundreds of kilometres inlands. Spain does have plenty of great ingredients and some of the foods are superb, but we still prefer the Italian food culture.
Mercat de Sant Josep food hall had the greatest products one can imagine available. I spent every day of the trip wondering if I should a full Iberico leg back home.
Well, I didn't but I did eat Iberico ham every day.
Our hotel and Plaça d'Espanya were next to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and it's Font Màgica, the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc.
Barcelona is known for the Gaudi buildings but with the heat above 30C, I didn't fancy queueing with the other tourists.
They are still building the church. They started building Sagrada Família in 1882.
Like the other top tourist sites, Park Guell was pretty crowded as well.
.. but the street musicians there were worth the climb (mostly outdoor escalators, though).
.. and even the 13 gooses were still there at La Seu Cathedral. Each goose represents one year in the life of the martyr Santa Eulalia, a young girl tortured to death in the 4th century by the Romans for her religion.
And La Ramba, the main walking street in the city, with it's street artists (and scams) was just like we left it 10 years ago.
We left Finland to "escape" the traditional Midsummer festivals. It turned out that on 23rd June they celebrate similar San Juan in Catalonia as well with plenty of traditions. For example people have bonfires and if you jump three times over the bonfire, you will be purified and your problems burned away. It was quite a noisy days at the Plaça d'Espanya.
Petri
Senior Insider
La Rioja
Rioja wine region is some 600 km north from Barcelona, almost on the Atlantic coast of Spain. It's also on the border between Basque country and rest of Spain.
On our way up north we saw the Greenwich meridian, the zero longitude for coordinates. I never realized it was so clearly marked
Spain had excellent motorways and at least during a working day, relatively little traffic. Superb driving everywhere, exemplary signs and returning the rental car to the Barcelona airport was one of the easiest we've seen.
We were staying in Hotel Viura, another new, small design hotel in a small town of Villanueva de Álava. The deals we managed to get with all our accommodations were just great, superb price/quality ratio.
When we checked in, the front desk guy recommended that we book the winery tours the next morning as especially the english ones are quite difficult to get. "They are not prepared for us", he said. We were wondering what he meant.
We didn't really want to do much winery tours as they all look the same. Visiting the stores, the public spaces, tasting rooms and restaurants would be plenty enough, we thought. Lunch with the wines, what would be better way to taste their offerings but with the matching local foods?
We had no special wineries in mind, Rioja wines are pretty solid performers. We got some excellent borchures from the hotel and I had Air Canada's "Top 5 Design Wineries in La Rioja" article.
La Rioja is a beautiful area with small medieval villages on hills surrounded by vineyards and mountains. I believe Laguardia is the main village in the area (excluding the larger cities).
We had dinner in Laguardia on the second night and all of the village was having a fiesta, not San Juan as in Barcelona a few days earlier but another one. Religion, what a great excuse for celebrations. The local teenagers had a samba band playing.
We decided to start with Bodegas Ysios. We had never heard of them but they must be something special with such a building, right?
The front door was locked so we didn't get in. Nice area, though.
Bodega Antion looked nice and it looked like it had a small hotel as well. Not so fast. Both the front and rear entrances were blocked with chains. Nothing was happening here.
Our third stop was the famous Marqués de Riscal. It's also a Starwood hotel property so it must be a great place for a lunch.
Well.. you can't really drive to the place itself. The visitor parking is further away and there's a guard to the actual building. All the gates are locked and there is a smaller building with a shop and tasting room.
At least we finally managed to get ourselves a glass of local wine. I stole some peanuts from another table.
Next stop was Bodegas Baigorri with a beautiful elevated glass building, views to die for across the vineyards.
Like most other places, the signs say that the place is open from 10 to 18 and there are tours at 11, 13 and 15 by appointment only. Well, guess if the door was open?
Ok, no problem. Next stop is Bodega Viña Real. Why not, these wine tours are happening pretty fast this way.
Damn, the road to the winery is cut with a chain. Laura stops the car and I start walking to the front yard. If nothing else, I should at least get a good picture of the building. A guard yells at me and tells me not to take any photos.
Now we know what "they are not prepared for us" means.
Seriously, I don't get it. Why do these people build these amazing landmark buildings and sites and don't let people in? Where are all the cafes, restaurants, shops and other small facilities to build the brand with random visitors? A lot of people drive from the other countries to Spain and could bring back home boxes of wines very easily.
I can understand that they may prefer to have bookings for winery visits but it shouldn't mean that everything is locked rest of the day. We've had random visits and lunches in all the other wine regions and countries and dropping by without an agreement has never been a problem. In Rioja (Spain in general?) the winery visits probably work fine if you book everything in advance for a strict tour but that's like traveling in a tourist bus with a set program.
Our best winery visits were in Chile where we met the winery owner/winemaker, took some bottles of wine and coolers filled with local cheeses and other food, walked to a small sun deck next to the vineyards and set up a picnic -- chatting, drinking, eating, and looking at the wine growing. These folks could have at least have a terrace with tables so that people could have picnic of their own -- with the wines and food from the winery's shop.
It would have been better idea to skip La Rioja and spend these days on the Mediterranean coast.
We did buy a bottle of wine to bring home, though. Ysios 2005 was 18 euros at the supermarket and expensive compared to all the other 3-6 euro wines (it was actually quite funny to see wines that cost less than an euro a bottle). Such a landmark building and wine that costs several times more than the average, it must be good, right? We'll see.
On our way from the Pyrenees to Barcelona, we stopped by in Vilafranca del Penedes to visit the Torres winery. Bodegas Torres is the largest winery in Spain and has operations around the world -- if anyone, they must have excellent visitor facilities.
They were just locking the door when we arrived and we couldn't see any shop, lunch restaurant or anything open. We ended up having a lunch in a small neighborhood street corner diner in the town, next to the passing motorway.
Rioja wine region is some 600 km north from Barcelona, almost on the Atlantic coast of Spain. It's also on the border between Basque country and rest of Spain.
On our way up north we saw the Greenwich meridian, the zero longitude for coordinates. I never realized it was so clearly marked
Spain had excellent motorways and at least during a working day, relatively little traffic. Superb driving everywhere, exemplary signs and returning the rental car to the Barcelona airport was one of the easiest we've seen.
We were staying in Hotel Viura, another new, small design hotel in a small town of Villanueva de Álava. The deals we managed to get with all our accommodations were just great, superb price/quality ratio.
When we checked in, the front desk guy recommended that we book the winery tours the next morning as especially the english ones are quite difficult to get. "They are not prepared for us", he said. We were wondering what he meant.
We didn't really want to do much winery tours as they all look the same. Visiting the stores, the public spaces, tasting rooms and restaurants would be plenty enough, we thought. Lunch with the wines, what would be better way to taste their offerings but with the matching local foods?
We had no special wineries in mind, Rioja wines are pretty solid performers. We got some excellent borchures from the hotel and I had Air Canada's "Top 5 Design Wineries in La Rioja" article.
La Rioja is a beautiful area with small medieval villages on hills surrounded by vineyards and mountains. I believe Laguardia is the main village in the area (excluding the larger cities).
We had dinner in Laguardia on the second night and all of the village was having a fiesta, not San Juan as in Barcelona a few days earlier but another one. Religion, what a great excuse for celebrations. The local teenagers had a samba band playing.
We decided to start with Bodegas Ysios. We had never heard of them but they must be something special with such a building, right?
The front door was locked so we didn't get in. Nice area, though.
Bodega Antion looked nice and it looked like it had a small hotel as well. Not so fast. Both the front and rear entrances were blocked with chains. Nothing was happening here.
Our third stop was the famous Marqués de Riscal. It's also a Starwood hotel property so it must be a great place for a lunch.
Well.. you can't really drive to the place itself. The visitor parking is further away and there's a guard to the actual building. All the gates are locked and there is a smaller building with a shop and tasting room.
At least we finally managed to get ourselves a glass of local wine. I stole some peanuts from another table.
Next stop was Bodegas Baigorri with a beautiful elevated glass building, views to die for across the vineyards.
Like most other places, the signs say that the place is open from 10 to 18 and there are tours at 11, 13 and 15 by appointment only. Well, guess if the door was open?
Ok, no problem. Next stop is Bodega Viña Real. Why not, these wine tours are happening pretty fast this way.
Damn, the road to the winery is cut with a chain. Laura stops the car and I start walking to the front yard. If nothing else, I should at least get a good picture of the building. A guard yells at me and tells me not to take any photos.
Now we know what "they are not prepared for us" means.
Seriously, I don't get it. Why do these people build these amazing landmark buildings and sites and don't let people in? Where are all the cafes, restaurants, shops and other small facilities to build the brand with random visitors? A lot of people drive from the other countries to Spain and could bring back home boxes of wines very easily.
I can understand that they may prefer to have bookings for winery visits but it shouldn't mean that everything is locked rest of the day. We've had random visits and lunches in all the other wine regions and countries and dropping by without an agreement has never been a problem. In Rioja (Spain in general?) the winery visits probably work fine if you book everything in advance for a strict tour but that's like traveling in a tourist bus with a set program.
Our best winery visits were in Chile where we met the winery owner/winemaker, took some bottles of wine and coolers filled with local cheeses and other food, walked to a small sun deck next to the vineyards and set up a picnic -- chatting, drinking, eating, and looking at the wine growing. These folks could have at least have a terrace with tables so that people could have picnic of their own -- with the wines and food from the winery's shop.
It would have been better idea to skip La Rioja and spend these days on the Mediterranean coast.
We did buy a bottle of wine to bring home, though. Ysios 2005 was 18 euros at the supermarket and expensive compared to all the other 3-6 euro wines (it was actually quite funny to see wines that cost less than an euro a bottle). Such a landmark building and wine that costs several times more than the average, it must be good, right? We'll see.
On our way from the Pyrenees to Barcelona, we stopped by in Vilafranca del Penedes to visit the Torres winery. Bodegas Torres is the largest winery in Spain and has operations around the world -- if anyone, they must have excellent visitor facilities.
They were just locking the door when we arrived and we couldn't see any shop, lunch restaurant or anything open. We ended up having a lunch in a small neighborhood street corner diner in the town, next to the passing motorway.
Petri
Senior Insider
The Pyrenees - Intro
"The Pyrenees (also spelled Pyrenées, pronounced /?p??r?ni?z/; Spanish: Pirineos or Pirineo, French: Pyrénées, Catalan: Pirineus, Occitan: Pirenèus, Aragonese: Perinés, Basque: Pirinioak or Auñamendiak) is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain." -- pretty simple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenees
While Barcelona is a great city and I wouldn't mind spending a few months there, I thought we might want to see something different in Spain. By accident I saw some amazing photos from the mountains in the Pyrenees and started to dig deeper.
Without a "grand plan", I settled with Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido. It's been a national park for almost 100 years and the area is also an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It's almost in the middle between the Pacific and Mediterranean.
It's easier if one settles somewhere and drives from there around, for which I found a small, mid-evil or medieval town of Ainsa. And if the weather turns bad, we had an option to escape to France some ~20 miles away.
We didn't have any expectations but the region was a pleasant surprise. It didn't look like the mountains in Bulgaria but more like Switzerland or Northern Italy but with less tourists and people spoke spanish. The houses were proper stone houses for the winter weather and things looked pristine. Small villages here and there, usually on top of a hill.
Ainsa was not a party town but one could easily see that it had plenty of visitors during the high seasons (this is a ski region as well). For example no tourists, not even the visitors staying in the village, could drive to the village. We had to unload/load our luggage at the entrance to the main square, walk to the hotel, and park our car behind a castle next to the village.
Our hotel was on the east side of the plaza, far right on the plaza picture. Our room had a view to the outside of village, to the mountains. Beautiful. It was a small place with just eight rooms, reception was in a small souvenir shop next door and closed in the evenings. Sort of B&B without the hosts, not very expensive, officially two stars but I'd give it four, it was just perfect. Great breakfast as well, we didn't need any lunch.
Everything was well restored and looked very picturesque. Simply beautiful. Very similar to e.g. the villages in Italy but with about 1000 times less tourists -- good! A lot of small shops, though. There's also the Ainsa Castle, which was home to the Aragonese Royal Court of Sobrarbe during the early years of the Spanish Reconquest. There is also a new Eco Museum which exhibits the Pyrenees ecosystem in great detail.
Next to Ainsa was a super beautiful lake, the shade of blue was just amazing due the minerals from the mountains. There was a big power plant at the other end of the lake, quite far away.
For some odd reason we actually ate twice in the same restaurant. The food was pretty good, mostly local plus plenty of seafood, but I think we enjoyed the atmosphere most. They didn't speak english. They had a new guy as a waiter who was pretty clueless. Most of the customers were spanish. Everything was very informal, food arrived in random order.
Laura was thirsty and I graved for wine. So we ordered "a bottle of mineral water and a bottle of wine, red wine". We got both. They never asked what kind of wine we'd like. And we got just one wine glass initially. It was a 5.50 euros bottle of local wine and it didn't taste bad at all. On the second visit we ordered the next expensive wine (7 euros) on the list. The didn't have anything above 10 euros anyway.
The dessert was one of the best. A perfect cafe cortado, similar to the macchiato in Italy. The dessert had some kind of local goat cheese, the texture felt almost like ice cream. On top of that, nuts in local honey. Looking at the offerings in the local stores, the region must be known for the wide varieties of honey.
Anyway, 40 euros for two, a lot of food from iberico ham to octopus, desserts, cafes, bottle of wine. Not bad.
BTW, we never tipped during the trip. We may have rounded something we paid in cash but there was never an option to tip.
"The Pyrenees (also spelled Pyrenées, pronounced /?p??r?ni?z/; Spanish: Pirineos or Pirineo, French: Pyrénées, Catalan: Pirineus, Occitan: Pirenèus, Aragonese: Perinés, Basque: Pirinioak or Auñamendiak) is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain." -- pretty simple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenees
While Barcelona is a great city and I wouldn't mind spending a few months there, I thought we might want to see something different in Spain. By accident I saw some amazing photos from the mountains in the Pyrenees and started to dig deeper.
Without a "grand plan", I settled with Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido. It's been a national park for almost 100 years and the area is also an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It's almost in the middle between the Pacific and Mediterranean.
It's easier if one settles somewhere and drives from there around, for which I found a small, mid-evil or medieval town of Ainsa. And if the weather turns bad, we had an option to escape to France some ~20 miles away.
We didn't have any expectations but the region was a pleasant surprise. It didn't look like the mountains in Bulgaria but more like Switzerland or Northern Italy but with less tourists and people spoke spanish. The houses were proper stone houses for the winter weather and things looked pristine. Small villages here and there, usually on top of a hill.
Ainsa was not a party town but one could easily see that it had plenty of visitors during the high seasons (this is a ski region as well). For example no tourists, not even the visitors staying in the village, could drive to the village. We had to unload/load our luggage at the entrance to the main square, walk to the hotel, and park our car behind a castle next to the village.
Our hotel was on the east side of the plaza, far right on the plaza picture. Our room had a view to the outside of village, to the mountains. Beautiful. It was a small place with just eight rooms, reception was in a small souvenir shop next door and closed in the evenings. Sort of B&B without the hosts, not very expensive, officially two stars but I'd give it four, it was just perfect. Great breakfast as well, we didn't need any lunch.
Everything was well restored and looked very picturesque. Simply beautiful. Very similar to e.g. the villages in Italy but with about 1000 times less tourists -- good! A lot of small shops, though. There's also the Ainsa Castle, which was home to the Aragonese Royal Court of Sobrarbe during the early years of the Spanish Reconquest. There is also a new Eco Museum which exhibits the Pyrenees ecosystem in great detail.
Next to Ainsa was a super beautiful lake, the shade of blue was just amazing due the minerals from the mountains. There was a big power plant at the other end of the lake, quite far away.
For some odd reason we actually ate twice in the same restaurant. The food was pretty good, mostly local plus plenty of seafood, but I think we enjoyed the atmosphere most. They didn't speak english. They had a new guy as a waiter who was pretty clueless. Most of the customers were spanish. Everything was very informal, food arrived in random order.
Laura was thirsty and I graved for wine. So we ordered "a bottle of mineral water and a bottle of wine, red wine". We got both. They never asked what kind of wine we'd like. And we got just one wine glass initially. It was a 5.50 euros bottle of local wine and it didn't taste bad at all. On the second visit we ordered the next expensive wine (7 euros) on the list. The didn't have anything above 10 euros anyway.
The dessert was one of the best. A perfect cafe cortado, similar to the macchiato in Italy. The dessert had some kind of local goat cheese, the texture felt almost like ice cream. On top of that, nuts in local honey. Looking at the offerings in the local stores, the region must be known for the wide varieties of honey.
Anyway, 40 euros for two, a lot of food from iberico ham to octopus, desserts, cafes, bottle of wine. Not bad.
BTW, we never tipped during the trip. We may have rounded something we paid in cash but there was never an option to tip.
Purplejeep
SBH Insider
Petri - I am sorry I did not read this sooner- I have been in Barcelona since the 1st of July - perhaps I passed you in San Josep market(I was there a few days ago)! I have been on my own wandering about, so I would have enjoyed meeting you. I am headed for London today to catch up with family and friends before returning to Barcelona next week. Enjoy the rest of your holiday!
Petri
Senior Insider
Pyrenees - The first hike
First of all, we're not mountain people as such. There are no mountains in Finland.
We do enjoy doing interesting things; climb the dynes in Namibia, snow-topped volcanos in Chile, abseil to caves in New Zealand, do the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk day and night, whatever happens to feels fun to do - touristic or something that will hurt your muscles for days, or anything in between.
We've never really climbed any mountains with professional gear nor have the skills to do so. The climb in Chile to the volcano was about as "pro" as we've ever gone..
.. and we'd do everything again. Our plan for the Pyrenees was just to hike up there, somewhere with great views. We had some route ideas but not really any idea what to expect. Laura isn't quite comfortable with heights but we'll survive as long as it doesn't look too deadly.
We started with a half-day hike, "easy" by all the definitions. It took about an hour to drive from Ainsa to the end of a small road where the path started, next to a small (about three houses and a church) village.
A nice spot to showcase our cool Mini Cabrio convertible as well. The booth was super small so we actually had to put our luggage on the rear seats.
In this photo the village is in the middle, far right. One can see a few roofs there. The first part of the route went pretty much at the same level across the photo to the right, behind the rock corner. At the end was a nice spot for a lunch and to see a waterfall and several deep valleys around.
One option was to return the same way but one could join another route by going up. The first part was pretty steep path uphill to the "yellow level" on the picture. From here the route was on the yellow areas towards back to the village.
First of all, we're not mountain people as such. There are no mountains in Finland.
We do enjoy doing interesting things; climb the dynes in Namibia, snow-topped volcanos in Chile, abseil to caves in New Zealand, do the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk day and night, whatever happens to feels fun to do - touristic or something that will hurt your muscles for days, or anything in between.
We've never really climbed any mountains with professional gear nor have the skills to do so. The climb in Chile to the volcano was about as "pro" as we've ever gone..
.. and we'd do everything again. Our plan for the Pyrenees was just to hike up there, somewhere with great views. We had some route ideas but not really any idea what to expect. Laura isn't quite comfortable with heights but we'll survive as long as it doesn't look too deadly.
We started with a half-day hike, "easy" by all the definitions. It took about an hour to drive from Ainsa to the end of a small road where the path started, next to a small (about three houses and a church) village.
A nice spot to showcase our cool Mini Cabrio convertible as well. The booth was super small so we actually had to put our luggage on the rear seats.
In this photo the village is in the middle, far right. One can see a few roofs there. The first part of the route went pretty much at the same level across the photo to the right, behind the rock corner. At the end was a nice spot for a lunch and to see a waterfall and several deep valleys around.
One option was to return the same way but one could join another route by going up. The first part was pretty steep path uphill to the "yellow level" on the picture. From here the route was on the yellow areas towards back to the village.
Petri
Senior Insider
Here are some photos from the route:
There's actually people down in the valley by the circular river pools.
After going uphill we got into another level:
What was nice that the route was actually clearly marked, one way or another.
And finally, back to the village.
Ok, nothing challenging but a nice way to spend the hours. It was hot and the sun was shining. We met a few other people, couple of families, but people didn't seem to be aware of the upper route back to the village. The upper route was part of another, longer hike up to the mountains.
A good start and promising region. The photos just don't do justice to the views, drops and changes in altitude. We had no trouble following the routes, the terrain was just perfect for our non-existing gear and things looked very good for rest of the trip. A baquet with some iberico ham was a good lunch with a few bottles of water en route.
A great day for these tourists!
There's actually people down in the valley by the circular river pools.
After going uphill we got into another level:
What was nice that the route was actually clearly marked, one way or another.
And finally, back to the village.
Ok, nothing challenging but a nice way to spend the hours. It was hot and the sun was shining. We met a few other people, couple of families, but people didn't seem to be aware of the upper route back to the village. The upper route was part of another, longer hike up to the mountains.
A good start and promising region. The photos just don't do justice to the views, drops and changes in altitude. We had no trouble following the routes, the terrain was just perfect for our non-existing gear and things looked very good for rest of the trip. A baquet with some iberico ham was a good lunch with a few bottles of water en route.
A great day for these tourists!
Petri
Senior Insider
Pyrenees - The second hike
A new day, new mountains. We picked another valley with a bit different scenery and longer ascend. There were two major options, one to a series of waterfalls and the other to a plain. Both sounded good but as the waterfalls route was up and down the same route, we chose the latter.
This time the route started behind a hermitage and went almost straight into the forest. Uphill, uphill, uphill and uphill. Straight up.
Occasionally there was a slightly more open spot and you could see that you're actually getting somewhere. Sweating process, though.
At some point we actually heard a car driving and were wondering wtf? The route crossed a small gravel road several times and later we figured out what it was all about.
We could also see the waterfalls (the other route) from up there. Not quite sure if we had made the right choice at that point, we could see some snow on our level on the other side of the valley and it would have been great to touch snow in the middle of the summer.
Laura isn't doing a poop there, just digging the bag for some sun protection
The reason for the road was that there was actually a small farm on the plain. Plenty of cows with their calfs, a few horses too. It turned out that Laura is a bit scared of cows -- lions in Africa were perfectly fine, they either attack you or don't but cows just stare at you with their crazy eyes and you don't know what they are up to. That was a funny moment for sure.
Our destination was at the end of the plain where we could see several waterfalls coming from the mountains.
Looked like a perfect spot for a lunch as well, don't you think?
A new day, new mountains. We picked another valley with a bit different scenery and longer ascend. There were two major options, one to a series of waterfalls and the other to a plain. Both sounded good but as the waterfalls route was up and down the same route, we chose the latter.
This time the route started behind a hermitage and went almost straight into the forest. Uphill, uphill, uphill and uphill. Straight up.
Occasionally there was a slightly more open spot and you could see that you're actually getting somewhere. Sweating process, though.
At some point we actually heard a car driving and were wondering wtf? The route crossed a small gravel road several times and later we figured out what it was all about.
We could also see the waterfalls (the other route) from up there. Not quite sure if we had made the right choice at that point, we could see some snow on our level on the other side of the valley and it would have been great to touch snow in the middle of the summer.
Laura isn't doing a poop there, just digging the bag for some sun protection
The reason for the road was that there was actually a small farm on the plain. Plenty of cows with their calfs, a few horses too. It turned out that Laura is a bit scared of cows -- lions in Africa were perfectly fine, they either attack you or don't but cows just stare at you with their crazy eyes and you don't know what they are up to. That was a funny moment for sure.
Our destination was at the end of the plain where we could see several waterfalls coming from the mountains.
Looked like a perfect spot for a lunch as well, don't you think?
