Hiking in the rugged Pyrenees from Spain to the French Mediterranean coast

the Pyrenees from the French-Spanish border

If you want a fantastic hiking trip, head to the Spanish Pyrenees and its spectacular Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park near Broto, Spain.  The narrow mountain road winds high up a precipitous and alarmingly steep mountain valley to a parking area leading to trails for all levels of hikers.  These are very rugged valleys with huge cliffs and jagged, rocky peaks, glacial hanging valleys and gorgeous waterfalls.

deep gorge near the Spanish-Andorran border

waterfall in Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, Spain

Our hotel receptionist, an avid hiker himself, had suggested we take a trail to several popular waterfalls, climbing 3000 feet in less than a mile.  That sounded a little too much like rock climbing to us (which it pretty much turns out to be), so we chose a gentler route past the many beautiful waterfalls, ending high up in a glacial valley surrounded by cliffs and filled with wildflowers, rushing water and happy cattle.
With lots of stops to enjoy the beauty, photograph the falls and nibble on our lunches, we hiked 10 miles in 6 hours, climbing about 2500 feet in the process.  The trail is an old jeep road much of the way, something the Spanish really seem to like for their hiking, changing to a more typical Alpine trail in the upper valleys.  Other trails in the Park look a bit more rugged, but not difficult.
In late June, the wildflowers are gorgeous--mountainsides of bright yellow gorse (which shouldn't be there as it's nasty, thorny and invasive, but beautiful for one short month a year), mounds of wild roses, marsh marigolds and Queen Anne's Lace, bright yellow daisies and purple delphinium. Butterflies, black, yellow, white and blue varieties, were busy enjoying the multitude of wildflowers. We saw, mostly heard, quite a variety of birds, but virtually no wild mammals, not even chipmunks or rabbits.

gorse in bloom

We stayed in Broto, Spain, a pretty town of mostly basic hotels and limited restaurants.  A little farther up the valley towards the National Park is the picturesque and charming village of Torla, which we'd recommend over Broto.  It is full of hotels, good restaurants and shops.
The following day, we headed to Andorra (more about that in another blog), over mountain roads with endless hairpin turns, harrowing cliffs off to one side or the other, and damaged road surfaces. Several times, we had to wait while road crews with huge machinery scaled the loose rocks off the cliffs above the roads and moved the resulting boulders off to one side, letting us pass one lane at a time.

cattle in the high valley

Next to a hike up a mountain in the French Pyrenees, just beyond the border with Andorra (itself a mountainous enclave in the Pyrenees between Spain and France), where heavy clouds, lightening and thunder drove us down the trail just short of the summit.

our restaurant in Torla, Spain

On their eastern side, the Pyrenees form steep ridges all the way down to the Mediterranean.  They hit the sea in rugged cliffs and deep coves all around the town where we're staying, Banyuls-sur-mer. Today, we chose a coastal hike where the climbs down into and out of coves were much more difficult than the mountain hikes we've been doing.  They're steep and rocky all the way down to turquoise water and rocky beaches so typical of the Mediterranean.
The storm clouds had been building since early morning, but no rain until we started hiking out of a small cove with a couple of beach cafes.  As we climbed to the top of the cliff, there was a rush of cold wind from off the water, so we quickly backtracked and made it to shelter on one of the cafe's covered terraces before the clouds unloaded their deluge, along with spikes of lightening and rolls of thunder.  Very dramatic.

not-so-wild horses in the French Pyrenees

Tomorrow, we'll finish our hiking week with a climb to a peak just west of Banyuls.  We can hike right from our wonderful lodging, with its 3 huge suites over a winery several blocks back from the beach, providing mountain views and great comfort.

large bull curious about hikers

Banyuls yacht harbor in thunderstorm

Mediterranean coastal hike south of Banyuls-sur-mer