Muntanyas de Prades - Catalunya

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La Mussara

Sixty kilometres north of Tarragona, Catalonia. The mountains of Prades: an amazing, vast, green and rocky landscape with small villages perched on top of hills and cliffs. Over a thousand metres of altitude.

I stayed in the friendly refugio La Mussara, which is also the name of an area marked with several houses in my climbing guidebook. I quickily offloaded my bike and took the way to the village hoping to find an open market, maybe also a bakery... To my surprise La Mussara is a ghost town! Judging by the size of its ruins, a church and several stone houses, what remains today can only murmur in your ears imaginary stories of a busy, lively and even wealthy past, high up on a cliff overlooking mountains, little villages and the sea all the way down below.

I found precious bread and goodies in Alforja, some 17km back down the road. Having enjoyed the narrow winding roads - if only a bit worried about the night falling quicker than expected - I took the next few days to visit each one of the little villages in the area. Plus some climbing.

Prades does catch the cold from the high mountains: 7·C during the day! But it was much warmer down in the crags facing the sun.

The imponent cliffs of Montsant deserve to be highlighted as one of the jaw-dropping features in this area.

Siurana rules! A fantastic collection of high, coloured walls challenging only the most skilful of climbers. Not that I'm up for such a big challenge, but if I had a belayer I would certainly have had a go! Anyway, the crags in Spain do tend to be dominated by hard routes and the grading seems to be tougher than in France... Hehe. It's probably me lacking much harder training!

Look at my bike on a scenic little road and you might understand why I'm favouring the open landscapes... However, after Prades, down on the beach level (so nice and warmer!) I've been exploring Valencia for a few days... Check it out. Next! 😊

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Comments

[John]

Beautiful
Hello, the views are amazing aren't there, everything seems bigger in Spain than Britain doesn't it! Your bike does look tiny compared to the scenary! Keep enjoying yourself, that looks like an amazing experience. John