Walls in Spain: Saint-Laurent de Cerdans

As you may know, Bucky and I are constantly in search of the perfectly quaint French village that is about two hours from us here in Barcelona. We are always open to visiting any and all French villages within that range with the hope of falling in love. This past weekend, we headed to Saint-Laurent de Cerdans to check it out. Nancy joined us for the adventure and we had a great time!

The town was lovely, but there was not much going on since it was January! In fact, we couldn't find a restaurant or bar that was open, but we made do! Fortunately, there was a market ongoing in the main square when we arrived on Saturday and we bought a rotisserie chicken just like we used to do every week at the market in Eygalieres. We then foraged for the essentials like butter, cheese, bread and wine and we were set for our weekend!

The apartment we rented via Airbnb was in an old stone building from the late 1700s. We had a beautiful view of the Canigou mountains. It took a while to heat up the place so we layered ourselves to keep warm while we played cards, enjoyed meals and chatted. In the afternoon, we wandered through the town, visited the church and cemetery and hiked up to a large cross on the top of the hill overlooking the town. It was a lovely day.

After a wonderful breakfast of baguette, butter and jam on Sunday morning, we headed to Ceret on for a hike through the cherry orchards and to a hermitage in the hills. We found the hiking trail on a site that we have used before for hikes in France. We usually find the trail easily and follow the signs as indicated. This time, however, we took a wrong turn at the beginning so we went at least 30 minutes in the wrong direction before figuring out we were not headed to the hermitage. With the help of some locals, we determined where we needed to be so we turned around and headed there.

The hike, including the part we did in error, was amazing. Great views, lots of hills and we had India and Nancy leading the way. After over three hours of walking on rocky and hilly terrain we ended up back where we started and ready to head back to Barcelona. We had a great weekend and I have been thinking about it all this week because I have been suffering from sore calves since then! The pain, however, was well worth it!