Exploring the Pyrenees, Part III-B: Following the Cathars in the Bellver de Cerdanya & Gósol areas

By James T. Carney

The third day was supposed to be the most difficult of the hike, so I decided to take the van to Bellver de Cerdanya, and Julie and Peter opted to go with me. Bellver de Cerdanya is in a major valley, with good farmland, in the Pyrenees, which differs from the Alps in having many fertile valleys. (The Cathars at one point had destroyed one of the orthodox churches in the area, which suggests that the area was strongly pro-Cathar.)
    We spent the morning exploring the Citadel.

Photo by Peter or Julie

...and trying to exchange my dollars for euros. I am afraid that about the only places in Europe where you can exchange dollars for euros are airports. The banks don’t do it. Indeed, my cousin Bruce told me that when he goes to the United States and needs dollars, his bank there has to wire Paris to send it some dollars. It takes about three days. Everyone uses credit cards to buy goods or to obtain euros. That afternoon we took about a 20-kilometer (12-mile) hike around the local villages including Tallo, Pi, and Olia, which surround Bellver. And then we met up with the rest of the group. Although the others were exhausted from their hike, they had made fairly good time and got in about 4:00 p.m.

The fourth day, like the second, was an excursion rather than an experience of a real section of the Cathar Trail. We climbed a mountain outside of Bellver Cerdanya and had a beautiful view of both Bellver Cerdanya and the huge valley formed by the Segre River.

These three photos by Detmar

On the way down we passed an abandoned church near a couple of houses that must have comprised a settlement of some size decades ago. Near the end of the trail down, Detmar wanted me to turn around to retrieve something from my pack, and in doing so I lost my balance and fell into some brambles. No harm done – other than to my dignity, which unfortunately is in better shape than my balance, which has never been good and hasn’t improved with age. Unfortunately, this episode seemed to alarm our guide (François), and he discouraged me from making the next day’s hike, which would have followed the Cathar Trail. Even though the hike would not be more difficult than the hikes I had already made, I went along with François’ request – to my later regret
    Accordingly, on the fifth day, Julie and I took the van to Gósol, the next-to-the-last stop for the Cathars and very sympathetic to the Cathar cause. A number of the Cathars actually settled there. The main site to see in Gósol (other than the house where Picasso stayed for six weeks and produced several important works) was one that some described as the ruins of an old castle at the top of the hill but was really a fortified village stemming from the Dark Ages. Unlike a castle, many of the ruins consisted of residential buildings. The ruins of an old church had a huge tower that served not just as a bell tower but also as a dormitory for the monks of the church. At the bottom of the tower was a dungeon for prisoners. Although the tower could have served as a watch tower, it was not needed for that because the hill itself provided such a commanding view of the terrain.

Photo by Julie

The final day of our hike saw us back on the Cathar Trail, at Fumanya, where our van dropped us off at the high point, so that most of the day consisted of descent, although we had to do some real climbing a couple of times and did ascend 1,400 feet, along with a descent of 2,900 feet. When we reached the top of the last ridge, we could see the monastery of Queralt in the distance.

This photo and the next by Detmar

    The monastery was the last stop for the Cathars before they descended from the mountains. The monastery that gave refuge to the Cathars is long gone, replaced by a Renaissance-type building constructed in the 18th Century. The site offers a magnificent view of Berga, a town in which many Cathars settled.

    At that point we began a sharp descent onto the plain of Berga, where many of the Cathars settled. We walked down a lengthy stairwell from Queralt to Berga. While I doubt that the Cathars had the benefit of the stairwell, it was probably built to follow the trail they used to leave the mountains and reach Berga.

Copyright © 2019 by James T. Carney