We have family in the country. Our niece and nephew Katy and Joe and their daughter Elsa are teaching in Barcelona for a year. We hadn’t seen them and they had some time off for All Saints Day so we grabbed the train to BCN, rented a car and took them up to the foothils of the Pyrenees to find some fall color.

We drove about two hours north to the tiny town of Alp near the Andorran border where we found an AirBnb big enough for the five of us. Catching up with the A_ family was great. Katy is a little disappointed that she can’t further develop her rather good Spanish but is being a good sport about learning Catalan. Joe seems to be managing and is challenging his new batch of history and civics students. Elsa has been adopted into a group that has a lot of shared interests and appears to be thriving. They’ve spent the fall exploring around Barcelona and making the most of their available time.

Our first day’s hike was in Parc Natural del Cadí-Moixeró, where we found a little walk next to a river, over a Roman bridge and through the woods. Further upriver was a dam that regulated the river flow. We got close enough to see it but weren’t able to see the lake from where we were.

We did another little walk up a little creek not too far from Alp. Turned out to be a lovely trail with a waterfall for the payoff.

At this point, we had to drop the kids off at the nearest train station to return to work, cough and we went on to Santa Pau, a lovely midieval village near Girona. We stayed in a cottage from the 1600s in the hills above town. Santa Pau’s region is known for its ancient volcanoes. You can still see the cinder cones although the last eruption was 11,000 years ago. The area still has earthquakes, the latest occurring in the early 1900s and being felt in Barcelona 60 miles away.

We took a walk up to a high point out of town through a lovely forest, past ruined buildings. It was chilly and windy so we hurried past exposed spots.

We took a little side trip to Besalú, county seat of the comarca of Besalú. Wilfred the Hairy, credited with the unification of Catalonia, was Count of Besalú. [Wikipedia] It’s know particularly for its picturesque bridge across the river Fluvia into the old town.

We spent another day in Girona, enjoying the old town and the city wall before returning the rental and hopping the train back home. It was a pleasant change and swing into fall.