Olot and Besalu

Trip Start Oct 10, 2011

Trip End Nov 11, 2011

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Flag of Spain Olot, Catalonia, Spain
Sunday, October 23, 2011

From Girona, we went a day trip to a couple of towns a bit higher up in the Pyrenees. Our initial hope was to stay for a couple of nights in Olot to use it as a base for a bit of hiking, but our inquiries at the tourist information office quickly made it apparent that a car would be necessary to get around to do the hikes. Not to be dissuaded, we decided to hop on the bus anyway and have a look around.

First up, we went straight to Olot, a town of about 30,000 people in the lower Pyrenees. There are three volcanic craters in the town, but these turned out to be pretty but not as interesting as we'd hoped. While the town was nice, we quickly decided there wouldn't be much to keep us occupied for the rest of the day, and therefore our time would be better spent by going to another town close by - Besalu.

Volcanic crater in Olot

This was the right decision, because Besalu is a goregous little town (population of less than 5,000), with a romanic bridge at its centre. There was a cathedral, but strangely, you could not enter; instead, there was a meter at the door where you could insert a Euro which would turn the lights on in the Cathedral for 3 minutes - during this time you were supposed to peer in through the dark glass on the doors. Very strange! There was also a strange (but cool) museum of 'minature things' which you had to look through microscopes to see properly. For example, when you looked closely at the eye of one of the needles, there was a tiny caravan of camels in it.

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