Roadtrip to Lyon through the Pyrenees

Following our excellent night at the Ben Harper concert, we left Barcelona in rental cars to drive north to Lyon, France. Thirteen students (of the original 30) took a course, offered by the University of Calgary, which was a week-long field study based out of the city of Lyon this year (it moves every year). Most of us decided to rent cars and drive up a few days earlier so that we could stop in the Pyrenees mountain range which runs all along the spanish-french border. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenees) We rented 3 cars and decided, for the sake of simplicity, that each car would do it's own thing rather than try to caravan on crazy spanish roads with crazy spanish drivers. Our car decided to first stop up on the mountain of Montserrat, which is a formation just northeast of Barcelona. It has a large monstary and provides beautiful veiws of the surrounding Spanish plains where the rain mainly stays. Below is a picture of the others in my car: Elyse, Fraser, Sheena(L-R).

We tootled along some lesser highways (the ones without tolls) and got lost a couple of times (quite fun, really) and stopped at a town called Ponts for a picnic lunch. We drove up into the hills nearby the town and ate lunch on a peak near a cute monestary. I love travelling in off-peak season, the weather is nicer (cooler, but not too cool) and there was nobody around.

We finally made it to our destination in the Pyrenees at a little village of 20 permanent inhabitants nestled into the side of a hill. The 12 of us in the three cars had rented the use of a house there. The village was called Noves de Segre and was close to a larger town called La Seu d'Urgell in Spain, close to the border with Andorra and France. The house was four storeys, with a large kitchen/common room on the top floor. It had a real rustic feel, and had large windows with views of the pine covered mountains and the valley below which had horses with cowbells around their necks. VERY picturesque!!

We were all very happy to be on a road trip in this beautiful setting with good company, so we decided to celebrate that night. The calculation for the shopping trip went something like this: (4 people)*(1.5 bottles/person) = 6 bottles. The units cancel out, so it works. I learned how to make fantastic cheesy garlic bread, yummy crema catalana on ice cream, danced in the narrow streets a bit, and contemplated life while sitting on the side of a mountain. Good times. (See pictures on Elyse and Arif’s Flickr sites)

We went hiking the next day in the mountains near the town. It was perfect weather, not too hot or too cold, and the alpine meadows reminded me of the sound of music a little. I'm having troubles posting more photos on here, so you'll have to refer to Elyse and Arif's Flickr sites.

The following day we headed out early to get to Lyon. We took a long detour through Milau to see the viaduct there. Designed by Norman Foster. That's pretty much all I have to say about that. The roads were very winding and Sheena and Elyse were getting car sick. It was probably a motorcyclists dream: careening around turns on the sides of mountains or hills at 130km/hr.