'I found myself in a magical world of a sun-dappled forest, speckled with wild flowers of kaleidoscopic colours and brilliant mosses': Solo walking in the Pyrenees

It was a beautiful, sunny day in late April when I set off for the Hermitage of St Anthony, in the Spanish Pyrenees, following not one of the two well-marked trails from town, but the detailed walking notes I had been given, along a less-trodden path. Up I climbed, along a narrow, stony track, the rush of the El Freser river below me growing ever fainter, the drop ever more vertiginous and confidence in my map-reading fast dwindling. I sniffed the air and inhaled a wonderful perfume of pine mixed with musty earth. ‘Rain,’ I thought… and then the heavens opened.

With considerable relief, I reached a mountain road, where two cars passed me, wind-screen wipers at a metronomic 120 ticks-per-minute, kindly offering lifts. ‘Persevere,’ I told myself, ‘how much further can it be?’ Quite a way, as it turned out. I passed through a meadow under the baleful eye of a bull, through a forest and, eventually, reached the Hermitage to find it… shut. I had hoped to see an icon of the Devil that, I’d been told, is in the small chapel — an anomaly, as the chapel is dedicated to St Anthony of Padua and not to the Desert Father, Anthony the Great, of Temptation fame. Oh well…

By now drenched and spouting water from my hat like a gargoyle, I surveyed the scene: not a soul. Some ugly television antennas had been raised in this popular beauty spot. Of the fabled views from 1,271m (more than 4,000ft), I could see nothing in the now enveloping mist. Worse: in these conditions, the steep and slippery descent of the mountain was out of the question. Remarkably, there is signal throughout the area, but my phone, almost as wet as I was, had to be coaxed into cooperation. Sheepishly, I called the hotel, and someone came rushing to my rescue. It must have taken the car’s upholstery a week to dry out.

This, my only mishap in a glorious week of walking in the Pyrenees, serves as a cautionary tale. Instead of the security of companionship, where a mischance becomes a shared adventure rather than a spike in blood pressure, I had chosen the contemplative pleasures of a solo walk, its rhythm conducive to thought and reflection, a balm for the soul. I was staying in a delightful family-run hotel, Resguard dels Vents, a 15-minute walk from Ribes de Freser, a sleepy town of little architectural merit (bar the occasional reference to the Catalan Art Nouveau), but notable for being at the confluence of three rivers and famed in the 19th century for its ubiquitous and healing springs.

The hotel, designed in stone, glass and wood to blend with the natural surroundings, perches above El Freser on a little road that culminates in a farm, around which three generations of the Perramon family live. It has a spa, useful for aching limbs, a ‘bracing’ outdoor pool and a sauna with views to die for. ‘My great-grandfather, a farmer, bought this land,’ says Marta Perramon, who presides over reception, dispensing advice and arnica. ‘We built this hotel 18 years ago.’

On the hillside, all around, the family’s herds of Charolais cattle ruminate, bells clanging, as they enjoy views of snow-capped mountains in the distance. The sounds of the mountains — cowbells, trilling birdsong, rushing rivers, together with the nocturnal squeal of frogs and the hoot of the tawny owl — add indispensable spice to the visual feast. Less than an hour and a half from Barcelona airport (by car; avoid the train journey, which, at best, will take four hours), this is an untouched world.

On my first day, I decided to explore the hills behind the hotel, first picking my way through a mooing herd that blocked the muddy path, fearful lest they sense I had dined on one of their kin the night before (Brocheta de ternera ecológica de ‘Mas Ventaiola’ a la brasa con guarnición—one of several delicious dishes at the hotel restaurant). Numerous paths were signposted — one leading past rustic farmhouses, a solitary Catalan Independence flag fluttering on a crest, and the most scenic bus stop I have ever seen, in the middle of nowhere. A bench had been installed next to it, facing the valley, together with a small shrine — for those, perhaps, who had waited until there were no more tomorrows.

As the days passed, I became bolder with my itineraries. I walked 6.5km (four miles) uphill through a forest of Scots and black pine, oak and birch, blueberry bushes, and blossoming apple and plum trees. The path, strewn with pine cones and booby-trapped with roots and rocks made spongy with mosses and ferns, led to a mountain refuge at Pla d’Erola, where I was rewarded with proper coffee and a fortifying shot of local ratafia: a liqueur made from wild herbs — the recipe for which, once unique to each family, was a jealously guarded secret. I sipped the bitter spirit at the Mirador, the high, serrated horizon dominated by the white snaggle-tooth peak of Puigmal, at 2,910m (9,500ft).

Despite the numerous trails from the hotel, some of the loveliest, as recommended by Inntravel, involve taking the Rack Railway, which was inaugurated in 1931, to transport pilgrims (and, increasingly, skiers) from Ribes to the shrine of the Virgin at Núria — the only other way to reach it being a mountain path dating back to the Middle Ages. The journey is unmissable, as the little train passes through lush forests, gorges with thunderous waterfalls, cuttings, tunnels and over sweeping viaducts, its penny whistle audible throughout the valley as it climbs more than 1,000m in 12.5km (3,280ft in 7.7 miles) — a journey of 40 minutes. An informative museum at Ribes Vila station explains how this feat of engineering was achieved—together with some persuasive early promotional material, which juxtaposes images of the train with sepia photographs of pilgrims slogging up the mountain on foot.

Núria is much changed since Sant Gil arrived, in AD700, in search of the hermit’s life. The crowds of day trippers and skiers, for one thing; the new Sanctuary, for another — reminiscent of Giles Gilbert Scott on a very bad day, the severe church flanked by a hotel — which houses a wooden Virgin purportedly sculpted by Sant Gil himself. Núria is an uncomfortable marriage of God and Mammon. However, the saint’s modest hermitage, erected in 1615, retains a sense of the numinous, as does the majestic scenery, in which three major valleys converge, and mountains tower all around.

I took the cable car to Coma del Clot, whence rugged walks lead higher towards the peaks and down into spectacular lilac valleys. The snows were beginning to melt as I slithered down, past the curious collection of modern Via Crucis sculptures. The marmots, sadly, had not yet woken from their winter slumber, but I saw skittish chamois — goats with antelopian aspirations — and evidence of wild boar in the churned earth. Overhead, some 15 griffon vultures soared in a kettle, until they dispersed, each to his own.

Perhaps my favourite walk of all was from Queralbs, an idyllic hamlet along the Rack Railway of exquisite stone houses lining steep and narrow stone streets and, together with nearby Fustanyà, one of the oldest settlements in the area. Its jewel is the Romanesque church of Sant Jaume, dating to the 10th century and unusual both for its narthex and for the capitals of its arcaded portico. Carved with human, animal and mythological figures, they hark back to Mesopotamian themes. Legend has it the church was, at one time, used by Cathar and Albigensian heretics.

Continuing beyond the town, I found myself in a magical world of a sun-dappled forest, speckled with wild flowers of kaleidoscopic colours and brilliant mosses, through which the icy, limpid waters of the River Tosa races. I could imagine John Ruskin posing on a rock in the middle of the flow, as in Millais’s portrait. That heady scent of petrichor. The symphonic complexity of the birdsong. I paused for a picnic lunch by a spring, then followed the bank of the river to a small granite gorge, revelling in Nature’s gesamtkunstwerk.

Blisters, shin splints, aching knees notwithstanding, I’d gladly do it all again. As for the weather forecast, I’ve now learnt to ask Marta’s father: farmers always know best.

Inntravel offers the seven-night 'A Stroll in the Pyrenees' itinerary from £1,050 per person, including three dinners, two picnics, route notes and maps, and GPS navigation. Call 01653 617001 or visit www.inntravel.co.uk for more information

This feature originally appeared in the July 2, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe