Health, Heights & History

We are now, finally, over our colds. Phew. Last week was a pretty quiet week, but we ended on a real high - literally. We planned to do a shortish walk, around 8km, to test if we were back up to proper walking mode after our lurgies. John checked out a few walking options on the net and we chose one that looked suitable and was a loop setting off from a nearby village. Unfortunately, while the profile of the walk looked reasonable, we didn't look closely enough at the X and Y scales, i.e. distance and height of climb. 

We were soon to find out however. Donning a small backpack, complete with standard baguette and other picnic items, we set off uphill from Montesquieu. If we had realised at that time that our ultimate destination would be the highest peak on the distant range I'm not sure we would have continued. We proceeded to push our way up a slightly overgrown track and climbed unceasingly and steeply for the next 2½ hours. Wow. After ploughing through bush we ended up trekking through fairly open granite country, up above the clouds and with magnificent views.

A little refuge on the top provided a shelter for those caught out in bad weather but was also a gorgeous place to sit outside in the warm sun and have out picnic lunch at 2.30pm. Since we were on the ridge of the Pyrenees, magnificent views extended into Spain on one side, across the French plains, and back to the peak of Canigou opposite us, up our valley to Céret and east towards the Med. It was absolutely stunning, and just reinforced how much we are enjoying our walks exploring the region.

We were pretty much at our limit by the time we got to the top of the ridge, but were very pleased with how our lungs and stamina held up. Fair proof we are back to full health. Recharged after our lovely picnic we descended by an alternate route, again pretty steep but not quite as bad, but we were certainly reliant on our walking poles for much of the trek. Another 2 hours saw us finally stagger to our car, with very tired legs but we are already talking about doing it again when we return to France, hopefully in Spring when all the plants will be in full flower.

Immediately we set foot in the car we agreed that a cold beer and pizza was in order for dinner. We called in briefly at Le Boulou to say goodbye to our good friend Samir who now works at the bank there. He worked in the Céret branch when we arrived here a few years ago and he was brilliant in getting our bank accounts and other things up and running. Interesting that he has found Le Boulou far worse off than Céret. Much of his time is now spent following up on loan defaults, whereas in Céret it was new business.

After Friday's expedition we continued on with our plans to have a small last tiki-tour before we head home in less than two weeks' time. We had been intending to visit L'Escala and Empuries (in Spain) for quite a while. Friends have told us how great the place is but we wanted to have more than just a day trip to explore, even though it is only 1 hour's drive from Céret.

We had booked a room for Saturday night, and arrived in L'Escala in time to get maps from the tourist office, have a coffee and a good wander around the town. It was previously a centre of anchovy processing, and has been for literally thousands of years as I will explain later. We treated ourselves to a good lunch at La Gruta, recommended by a number of friends. For the same price as an ordinary to good lunch in France, you get a top-class meal and superb service. Thoroughly enjoyable. Being Spain, lunch didn't finish until 4pm. We were still a bit tired from our trek, so after some more wandering and a little shopping it was an early night.

We had expected the highlight of this mini-break would be the Greek and Roman ruins next door to the current town of L'Escala. Sure was! We had little idea that Empuries had such a full set of ruins - a Greek trading town from 500BC complete with outer walls, squares, agora, cisterns, fish salting factory and so on, plus a Roman town which was built next door about 200BC (to prevent the Greeks supplying Hannibal) which was even more extensive - forum, baths, houses, walls, stadium and so on. We were amazed at the extent and clarity of it all, and the whole lot within an hour from home. Excellent descriptive signs throughout, with English for a change, and even a nice little museum.

Roman to the left, Greek centre top, beautiful beaches right

Roman

Greek temple steps and statue

To top off a really superb time there, we had a delicious tasty tapes lunch at a little restaurant at the old Iberian settlement beyond the Greek ruins.

We think this will make a superb guests' day out from Céret. Leave at 9, arrive at 10, visit the ruins until 1, lunch at La Gruta, walk back to the car, have a swim (the beaches are perfect), finish off with tapes and head back home in the evening. It would be hard to imagine a better or more varied day out.

In our case, we finished off having a most enjoyable dinner with friends back in Céret. A pretty damn good weekend.