Caves & Castles

We had a pretty good nights sleep in our free camp halfway up the col du puymorens and woke up at 7am.
2 spaces away from us in the aire at the very end of the spaces is a beaten up old caravan with a middle aged couple that have obviously pitched up for aslong as they can. At 8am they kicked off screaming and shouting at each other in French and a quick glance out of the window we saw that he already had a pint of something in the go.
Ellie quickly used the shower to wash her hair whilst I got dressed and packed the bed stuff away then Ellie got dressed while the very heated argument outside got louder and louder.
Just after 9am we were ready and we left the aire to continue our journey up the mountain halfway down the other side and then up the Alto de Toses which topped out at 1750 meters but the climb itself was 22km long to the top and 24km down.
We arrived at our first Spanish free aire in Sant Esteve d'en Bas at 12:30pm and we’ll be here for the next couple of days.

(The first references of Sant Esteve d'en Bas date back to the 10th century.
However, the remains found in the town centre suggest that, before the Christianisation period, there could have been a small pagan temple. During the 12th and 13th centuries, this place was turned into the centre of the viscountcy of Bas and within its borders there was the castle of the viscounts, called Castelló de Bas, and Sant Miquel church. Nowadays, it is the village with most inhabitants, as well as the administrative capital of La Vall d'en Bas.)

At 1:30pm we went for a quick walk around the old town and the actual town centre is ancient with a church dating back to the 12th century and some of the houses near it dating back to the 16th century. It is full of narrow little paths and roads.
Even though there’s nothing much in the town itself it does offer us a free aire which is right on the trail if the Via Verde Girona. Spain is criss crossed with old railway lines that have all been turned into greenways for hiking and cycling and some of them are hundreds of kilometres long and all are 100% traffic free. Spain is great at keeping traffic and bikes away from each other, so tomorrow I’m going to ride the Via Verde Girona all the way to Girona city which is 50km away and back.
During the afternoon we mainly just chilled sitting outside of Wanda for the first time on this trip. It is warm but we can’t actually see the sun because there has been a dust storm from the Sahara desert and the sky is a thick pink colour and Wanda is covered in a nice red sand.Meer informatie