Circular Walks in the Vall de Boí

Walking in the Vall de Boí is really well organised and most people will find enough to keep busy for 2/3 days within the confines of the valley itself.  Visiting the Romanesque churches provides a series of mini objectives and with bars and restaurants in all the villages there are also plenty of places to stop and relax.

The paths themselves are wonderful. In nearly all cases, they are based on the original inter settlement routes and are as old as the villages themselves.  Designed for pack horses/ponies as well as pack people they are perfectly graded and walking along them is a real pleasure.

Depending on how much time you spend in the churches (they are not that big) you can get around the valley in 9/10 hours. It's a challenge, but not quite as mad as it sounds as the paths are so easy and such a pleasure stopping is a problem.

El Pont de Suert to Boí

The GR11-20 from El Pont de Suert to Boí is an amazing stretch of walking and if the weather is good (and the route needs (deserves) good weather) could be a classic.  Essentially it's a contour walk and spend hours crosses moors that run high  on the side of a valley.  Although the immediate scenery is wonderful, especially in October when mellow autumn colours dominate, it's the views to the west that really grab the attention, particularly Monte Malditos (‘damned mountain’) and its highest peak the Pico Aneto (3404m).  Great views like this however, don't come cheap and working your way up the contour walk involves a climb of over 1,000m. 

It was fine but cloudy when I did it, but bad weather should be avoided.   It's an exposed route, stays up around at 2000m for several hours, and the path is hard to follow without GPS.  

Looking north into the Val de Boí

El Pont de Suert - Circular Walk No 2

After the navigational challenges of the first circular walk out of El Pont de Suert the second is a 'piece of cake'. It's a completely different - less about abandoned villages and decaying trails and more about huge open views, particularly north into the Pyrenees.

El Pont de Suert - Circular Walk No1

This walk is an easy one that, with its delights and frustrations, is a good introduction to walking in northern Spain.  There are signs everywhere of a countryside which used to be a lot busier.   Unfortunately the low usage levels of paths originally used to connect villages which are now abandoned means that some are getting overgrown.  Navigation is occasionally a challenge, particularly when the way marking is less than perfect.

On the face of it, this is a straightforward walk.  Just to the east of  El Pont de Suert is a shallow secluded valley full of small oak trees.  The walk heads out near the valley bottom and returns higher up on its northern side. It follows an old trail connecting ancient villages and farmsteads. 

El Pont de Suert and the Vall de Boí

The Vall de Boí is a gem.  With 9 churches, it has the highest concentration of Romanesque architecture in the world, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is also a great place for walkers. Combined with El Pont de Suert further down the valley, there is enough walking to keep you busy for a week.

Suggested walks around the Vall de Boí

The main attraction is the Vall de Boí itself.  A tight secluded valley, it features a series of lovely stone villages each bedecked with a Romanesque church (my favourite, Taüll, has two). The tall, skinny church towers, set off against a green mountain backdrop, are particularly photogenic.  The villages and the churches date back to the 11th Century when the local rulers spent their wealth, derived from silver trading, on architecture inspired by pilgrimages to Italy. Originally these churches were lavishly decorated with murals and although most them have now been moved to the national museum in Barcelona the church at Boí still has some of them in situ.

Walking in the Prepirineo

The Prepirineo, or pre-Pyrenees, are the ‘foothills’ of the Pyrenees on the southern side of the Spanish border with France.  Although little appreciated outside Spain they are a walker's paradise. They combine great scenery, wildlife, historical interest, good local food, a huge choice of accommodation, good weather and a comparatively long walking season.  With the help of my Spanish friend Juan Holgado, the expert on Spanish walking, I'm researching the area (an excuse for a series of Spanish holidays) and if it's as good as I think it is I will write a guide.

Defining where foothills start and finish is always a challenge and that's as true of the Pyrennees as it is of the Alps.  The Prepirineo to an extent are defined by geology.  The Pyrennees correspond to an exposed line of particularly old rock (known as the 'axial line' or 'primary axial line') with the Prepirineo formed by younger rock sitting either side of the ancient core. Geologically the Prepirineo are uplifted remnants of rocks that would originally have covered the older rocks in the middle, but being younger and softer they didn't last as long.  Of course, with great slabs of rock folding and faulting over each other it's actually more complicated.  In particular, it's not symmetrical and there are lots more of the younger, softer rocks on the southern Spanish side of the core than on the northern side.