Day 23 GR1 Liguerre de Cinca

Apparently the weather has been dodgy back in the UK and Christine was stuck on runway at Stansted for 5 hours. Poor Juan was waiting for her at Zaragoza Airport with the intention of making a multi-modal trip to Samitier to meet me at 3 o'clock to climb a big hill to look at a castle before going to the hotel. Despite the plane being so late amazingly they get to Samitier after Juan charms a lift from a young woman who is waiting for her cousin on the same flight. She drives them the 75 kilometres to Huesca and they then get the taxi as planned - alls well that ends well.

All I have had to do today is walk 20 kilometres from Paulas de Sarsas to Samitier. Nice walk but without with drama of yesterday. The Pyrenees were shrouded in cloud and the little villages had people living in them. Within 15 kilometres or so from rural desolation, villages like Arcusa had been restored and the houses gentrified.


El Coscollar
After Arcusa the route descended into a messy landscape of gullies, gorges and pine trees. Not an unpleasant trail but not memorable either, or maybe I was just too focused on the text updates from Stansted to really notice.

Laundry at Arcusa
Once Christine and Juan arrived we dropped the bags behind some logs and marched to the top of the hill to look at the moorish tower, the castle and the church. The views were huge, still some clouds over the Pyrenees but the rest of the countryside was bathed in the soft light of a declining sun. Big contrast with snowy London.

Castle and church at Samitier

Nice walk to the Hotel as well which turns out to be part of a village bought and restored by a trade union and now run as a holiday centre for its members. Very comfortable even for those of us who don't qualify as workers any more.
View down to the Embalse de Mediano
Christine likes to read my blogs before I press the publish button, something she can't do when she is in another country. Now she is here you should notice three important changes to the output. Firstly the grammar should improve, missing words will be added and superfluous words removed. Secondly there will be some attempt to identify the trees and flowers - there are, believe it or not lots of flowers but I didn't mention them because I had no idea what they were called. Finally there will probably be a detailed account provided of all the food we have consumed.


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