Eastern Pyrenees road trip

The submerged church at Sant Roma de Sau (Source: own picture)

If you are in the Barcelona area in need of some fresh mountain air then relief is within easy reach. With two days to spare, or, better still, three or four, you can visit the eastern Pyrenees in the province of Girona. The area has beautiful landscapes, cool mountain air, greenery, fine accommodation, and good food. Best of all, this is the least visited part of the Pyrenees, so you will not be swamped by tourists.

You should aim to leave Mataró, which is just north of Barcelona, in the morning. From Mataró, it is just 100 kms to the town of Ripoll in the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees. You would not know it by looking at Ripoll, because it is no less charming than any other Spanish provincial town, but Ripoll is infamous in Catalonia for being the home of the terrorists, who, on August 17 2017, drove a van through La Rambla in Barcelona and killed 23 people and injured another 130.

From Ripoll, it is just 10 kms to Sant Joan de les Abadesses, which is a former Carlist town. The Carlists were totally mad, but let me tell that story another time. Just above the town you will find the Abbatissa Hotel and Restaurant, which is an affordable yet extremely pleasant hotel in a lush forest setting with great views over the surrounding mountains.

Room with a view - Abbatissa Hotel and Restaurant (Source: own photo)

The Abbatissa is run as social project to create jobs for people with disabilities and in vulnerable situations in the region. The food is cheap, generous, and tasty. The service is second to none. There are enough nature walks in the forests around the Abbatissa to justify a stay of a least a couple of days. If you like mountain biking then this place is heaven.

Generous breakfast with warm freshly baked bread and pastry, fruit, and cured meats. Served with coffee and freshly squeezed fruit juice (Source: own photo)

When you are ready to move on, hit the narrow winding GIV-5223 road to the village of Beget, which is surely one of the most picturesque hamlets in all of Spain.

The hamlet of Beget (Source: own photos)

Aim to arrive around one o’clock so can you enjoy an outstanding lunch at Restaurant Can Jeroni de Beget. I can recommend the mushroom ravioli and especially the salad with apple and shavings of foie gras. The local wine is also delicious.

Fresh salad with apple and foie gras shavings (Source: own photo)

After lunch head south towards Oix and Olot via a series of serpentine roads through amazing mountain landscapes with yet more great views. On the road towards Arbúcies, be sure to take a detour to see the church of Sant Roma de Sau, because it is no ordinary church.

The Sant Roma de Sau church is, in fact, submerged in a lake with only part f its tower above water. The church was submerged exactly 900 years after its 1062 consecration with the completion of the dam on River Ter, making it the oldest still-standing submerged church in the world. The good people of Sant Roma de Sau have rightly put the Palestinian flag on the spire at the top of the tower in support of Gaza. Spain is cool that way.

Both the church and the surrounding settlement were victims of dictator Francisco Franco’s dam-building campaign in the 1960s. A new village was built in the hills above the dam, but the locals did not take to their new digs and most of them left.

Today, the water in the reservoir supplies Barcelona. During our visit, the water level was very high due to recent rains, but apparently it is possible to reach the church by foot in very dry periods. You can also scuba dive the underwater sections of the building.

The water level was too high to walk to the church tower. A scuba diver takes a rest at the base of the tower (Source: own photo)

From Sant Roma de Sau, it is an hour by road to Arbúcies and then another hour’s drive to the coast. If you fancy some extra leg work, however, head in a north-easterly direction after Arbúcies towards to Sant Feliu de Guixols for access to the spectacular coastal road that runs south through the Massif de Cadiretes to Tossa del Mar. This detour will add some miles to your trip, but the views are pretty unbeatable.

The view towards Tossa del Mar along the coastal road (Source: own photo)

Still, if you stick to the original route straight back to Mataró, you will still get to enjoy the imposing Montseny Massif, which sits just north of Granollers and whose highest peak - Turó de l'Home - is 1,712 m above sea level. The whole trip out and back (excluding the Massif de Cadiretes detour) is some 360kms, which translates into about 6 hours of driving given the terrain.

Source: here

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