Short Spanish trips, Wed, 19 Aug 2020 | written by Simon
Simon at a Castle in Europe, Spain

I set of four a couple days of work from the van. I didn’t set out until early afternoon, as I had a couple important calls in the morning. I headed South of Barcelona, but my intended destination, Coca Vermella, turned out to be hard to access and had no shade, so I had to change plans. I drove higher up for a better view, and found what I wanted from the Mirador de Begues.

I parked by a restaurant below the ruins of Castell d’Eramprunyà and worked for a couple of hours in the Baron. Thankfully, I found proper shade, as the day was roasting! Soon, I had no more to do and decided to set out exploring. The place turned out to be amazing – before I even reached the castle, to path led through a few really cool rock formations, some of which must have served someone as a hermitage – Ermita del Brugues. I sat in them for a while…

At the top, the ruins of castle and chapel were fenced off, but I just jumped it. Not just me – there were a few other people there, too. I think access is allowed only on a couple days a month, but clearly nobody cares. The castle itself was inaccessible (properly fenced off), but you could pretty much see it all from the outside. And the view of the area was fantastic! I ended up having a really nice relaxing evening, just hanging out on the rocks and enjoying the views.

On the way back, I noticed there is a dirt road going up here from the other side – maybe I could drive up the Baron here and wake up to a fantastic view? Alas, it turned out that the road was blocked off lower down, but I still found a nice spot by what looked like a helicopter landing spot along it and had a chill night. In the morning, a couple police officers on very silent electric bikes called on me, but when I told them I’m only here for a couple hours, they said it’s all cool and left.

On the way back, I fed the Baron some new oil – he really needed it! Good – ready for the long road to Poland.