Hiking in the Bergueda Mountains, Spain.

Spain happens to be one of those lucky countries that enjoys the best of all worlds, you’ve got the option of sunning it up on a beach or rolling in the snow. Sip coffee at a cosmopolitan cafe in Barcelona or get good and adventurous up in the mountains. Which leads me nicely to to what happened next in Catalonia… Adventure in the Bergueda mountains. It was yet another early morning for the intrepid bloggers and the previous nights epic buffet dinner was definitely not helping matters. To be honest it was beginning to rub a little, not starting dinner until 9 pm and then up at 7 am – but when the wine is flowing we aint the kind of cats to say no, the price – not much more than 6 hours sleep and a hangover every morning. But, nothing a spot of hiking in the snowy mountains wouldn’t fix…

We had stayed the night at El Montanya Resort, a plush spa resort hotel nestled in the north east region of Seva , Spain. After we’d finished up at the Barcelona cookery classes the previous day we jumped straight on the minibus and now it was time to do it all again. The bus dragged us slowly skywards and the landscape started to open up, I forget how high we actually were by the time we stepped off the bus… For two reasons: 1. The views were huge…

2. It was -10 below freezing…

I tried my best to roll a smoke before we set off hiking but the cold was chomping at my fingers and Georgie was raging about me not letting her pack her big jumper, rightly so under the circumstances. Still, the only way to warm things up was to get hiking. Our guide Albert Was a happy fellow all decked out in proper adventure gear with sticks to walk with and all sorts, this really didn’t inspire either me or Georgie with confidence because we’d just thrown on what we’d normally wear with a couple of extra T-shirts underneath. We set off and once the group had got up into the trees the wind was off us and the blood was pumping and things were warming up nicely. Hiking is something I always actually enjoy doing more than I think I would and up there on the snow covered hills of Bergueda it was all good. We were hiking for a few hours and probably because of the good company and the beautiful views of the Pyrenees Mountains the time seemed to fly by, it wasn’t a particularly demanding trek but it did have it’s rewards in the form of lunch at Els Roures, a hillside lodge that made the most of  locally grown mushrooms. We piled in the doors of the place after a short drive back down the mountains and the first thing that gets you is the huge fireplace that sits in the middle of the room… By huge I mean really huge, it has what I would call “trunk sections” not logs – actual large parts of a tree trunk!
As the warmth slowly found it’s way back into my life we were all handed a small shot glass sized cup and a spoon, it went by the name of hot chocolate but it didn’t look like it… It was literally hot chocolate, not coco… melted hot chocolate – the fire, the chocolate, I surrendered then and there to a life in the Bergueda mountains. What followed was nothing short of perfect, we were moved upstairs to a large room and the wine began to pour, the food began to arrive and what a feast it was. Every dish on the menu was traditional mountain grub and came with a side order of the locally grown mushrooms,  they even had mushroom liquor aperitifs, after working up a hiking hunker it was exactly what everyone needed and to be honest it was one of the best lunch’s that I’ve ever had!
Due to the amount of wine and mushroom liquor that was disappearing attentions turned to our afternoons adventure activity… Quad biking through the hills – were we still capable? I didn’t even care, I was warm, full and half cut.

Aaron Bradford has written 386 articles. +Aaron Bradford is the leader, mentor and chief geek of HappyTimeblog. He put together the crack team of writers known by codename “The Firm“. He's a permanent traveller and a lifestyle hacker. Wanna know more? Check out my Bucket List or my About page... I'm here to show you how to live a Life Less Ordinary