Spain Road Trip, Day 1

Done with Barcelona, we packed up and hit the road in just about the only automatic rental car in Spain. After driving the “automatico” Citroen C3, I can understand why Europeans shun automatic cars – they suck. Anyway, we sped our way to the mountains to nearby Monserrat and its scenic monastery tucked amongst the rock columns.

Me in the remains of a hermitage on Monserrat

The monastery at Monserrat

We then headed inland to Cardona to visit the Cardona castle, which is now a hotel.

Lord Emory overlooks his serfs below the castle

Elena in a barrel in Castle Cardona

Cardona Castle

We then headed through the mountains – literally. We passed through a 3-mile tunnel that cost 10 euro ($16) in tolls. But when we popped out the other side, we were suddenly in a verdant valley surrounded by the Pyrenees.

Elena in the valley

Driving through the mountains

The sun peeks into the valley

We stopped in Puigcerda for dinner, where again, we had to wait around for restaurants to open. After a horrific meal at a bar/café, we drove through La Molina in our quest to find our hotel in Collada de Toses. After realizing that our map and Google directions were useless, we resorted to driving through the mountains at night relying on Catalan road signs. We ended up erroneously in the alpine village of Toses, 150 people strong. Turning our car around in the narrow medieval streets was 20 minute operation. Eventually, we doubled back to La Molina, got directions that brought us on the path to Toses again, before we went back to La Molina again and settled down at a ski chalet around midnight.

The next morning, an English-speaking host at the chalet marveled at the fact that we ended up in Toses ("No one goes there!"), especially in the middle of the night. He explained that a lot of maps were wrong because Catalonia had recently been granted semi-autonomous status, and the Catalan government had been flexing its newfound powers by renaming all the highways. The irony of the situation is that our original hotel was literally a mile down the road from where we had turned off to go to Toses.