Sunday Hike

Bonjour à tous!

Yesterday was the first time I experienced hiking in the Pyrenees mountains - that's the mountain chain along the Spanish-French border.  A group of 5 of us drove out towards one of the tallest mountains of the Pyrenees called the Canigou.  We parked in a small town, which happened to be celebrating the festival of chestnuts (fête des châtaignes).  The entire area was covered with chestnut trees, which if you've never seen a chestnut in the wild, they're pretty intense looking.  It is a large, spikey, green covering that you break open to find the brown chestnut inside. 

From that small town we walked up to the Abbaye Saint Martin du Canigou.  It's a small abbey sitting in a nook in the mountains.  We explored around the abbey for a little while (we joined a tour to get inside, but didn't stick around with the group since it was a tour in Catalan!) and found a beautiful lookout point a little further up to see the entirety of the abbey.  It's a quaint place, like a mini castle, which is still currently inhabited.  There's also a beautiful cloister surrounded by roses and stonework. 

From there, we descended the roadway for the abbey, and took another route from where the car was parked.  This route was more of any actual hike through the woods, and it followed a stream back into the mountains to a beautiful waterfall for about an hour and a half.  It was a beautiful hike with the sun shining and autumn leaves on the ground.  This was my first taste of the autumn that I know... with leaves and that distinctive autumn smell.  It was great to experience that as it's something that I've been missing.

 After the hike, we returned to the car, made a stop in a cute village called Villefranche (I'm definitely going back up there to spend some time and climb up to the fort) and returned to Perpignan.  It was a perfect day outdoors, getting some exercise, and meeting some really great people that are also living in Perpignan.