From Barcelona to Puigcerda
I was planning my quasi-annual pilgrimage in Spain and decided to invite a friend who also needed to clear his head. I won't go into how we ended up starting our walk in Puigcerda, a town we had never heard of and never really learned how to pronounce, but let's just say it was a compromise that turned about to be the perfect choice.
i took a lot of pictures of this lone hot air balloon as if it were the most interesting thing in Puigcerda, but I found out later there's also a famous lake in the middle of town that people come from as far away as France to see, but somehow we missed it. I also found out later (just now actually) that Puigcerda is literally one mile from the border with France. It was a popular vacation town in a beautiful region in Catalonia.
Hot air balloon in Puigcerda
Day 1 of walking. The first part was not very pretty but it was nice to get moving. After an involuntary nap outside the tourism office in Alp, we took a much prettier forest path to La Molina.
pisto forestal
Sun setting towards the end of our day
In the town, we asked directions from a very nice retired couple who offered to drive us to the refuge (though it was close and we totally would've made it ourselves). When I said we were from New York, he said "el centro del mundo.....para la gente que viven allí." For him, the center of the universe is not New York, but Paris.
This is the view from the bathroom at the refuge.