Montellà i Martinet

The 9 a.m. coach from Barcelona drops only two passengers at the roadside pull-in below Montellà: a rucksacked Briton and a woman carrying a bag of lettuces still wet from her son’s garden. That is the first clue that this corner of Cerdanya operates on different maths. Three hamlets, 538 residents, one bakery van that toots its way through on Tuesdays and Fridays. You do not come here for a programme; you come because the valley air at 967 m smells of pine resin and newly turned hay, and because the church bells mark time more convincingly than any phone signal.

Stone, slate and the sound of the Segre

Montellà, Martinet and the tiny settlement of Ars sit on a shelf above the river Segre, close enough to hear the water when traffic on the N-260 quiets after dusk. The road is the valley’s spine: follow it north-east for 18 minutes and you reach Puigcerdà’s proper supermarkets and chemists; head south-west for 20 and you are in La Seu d’Urgell’s cathedral square. Yet the villages feel self-contained. Stone houses with slate roofs line lanes just wide enough for a tractor and its trailer of firewood. Balconies sag under geraniums; barn doors stay open because everyone already knows whose hay is inside.

The churches are the obvious landmarks, though none will keep you longer than half an hour. Sant Andreu de Montellà has the sturdiest Romanesque tower, its square bell-cote patched after a lightning strike in 1934. Inside, the font is still filled only for baptisms, the last one in March when the parents heated kettles on the presbytery stove because the water pipes had frozen. Sant Martí de Martinet, rebuilt piecemeal since the twelfth century, keeps its original apse but gained side aisles when the congregation outgrew medieval demographics. San Esteve d’Ars is the smallest, locked most days; ask at the house opposite and Conxita will fetch the key from under a flowerpot, pleased for the company.

Maps in your pocket, shade on your head

Walking starts directly from the church squares. A web of cobbled mule tracks and forest roads climbs west towards the Cadí ridge: yellow-painted stone cairns appear when you need them, vanish when you stop looking. The classic half-day loop leaves Martinet by the iron footbridge over the Segre, then works uphill through holm-oak and scots pine to the ruined farm of La Farga. From its roofless barn the view opens across the whole Cerdanya basin, the hayfields striped green and gold like a Paul Klee canvas. Allow three hours, carry more water than you think—altitude thirst is real—and start early in summer; shade is scarce and the sun reflects off bare shale.

Mountain bikers share the same dirt roads, though locals politely suggest you avoid the livestock-droving hours at dawn. Signed routes exist but the best tactic is to download the free 1:25,000 map from the county council: paper versions sold in Puigcerdà cost €8 and are usually out of stock. Road cyclists, meanwhile, use the valley floor circuit: 42 km of silky tarmac linking Martinet to Bellver and back, with only one nasty rise before breakfast. Traffic is light enough to hear chain noise, heavy enough to keep left on the bends.

What grows, what grazes, what gets served

The valley’s 1,000 m plateau is a market garden for Catalonia. Look for potatoes the size of golf balls, white beans called tavella, and cabbages that reappear later as trinxat—mashed with pancetta and garlic, then fried into a cake the size of a small Frisbee. Every restaurant serves it, but the honest version is at Cal Pipo in Martinet: €12 at lunch, topped with a fried egg if you ask. Evening menus edge towards €25 and require advance booking; the chef doubles as the village plumber and will not leave a burst pipe for love nor money.

Meat comes from the brown-flecked cows you have been photographing. Order vedella de Cerdanya and you are tasting last month’s meadow; the denomination covers animals finished above 900 m, the altitude stamped into their flavour. Mushrooms appear after the first September rains: rovellons (saffron milk-caps) sautéed in olive oil, then frozen in family-sized bags for winter. If you forage, take the Catalan government’s online test first; picking more than 3 kg a day or venturing into private woods can cost €300 in fines. The guardia civil patrol in plain vans, not stripey jumpers.

Winter white-outs and summer breathing space

Snow usually arrives between Christmas and Epiphany, sometimes overnight. The N-260 is gritted by six, but the side road up to Montellà can stay white until midday; winter tyres are not legally required but refusal often means staying put. On clear days La Molina and Masella ski resorts are 35 minutes away, quieter slopes in the neighbouring Alt Urgell even closer. Accommodation prices do not rocket—there simply are not enough beds—yet restaurants fill with weekend families who have driven up from Barcelona. Book trinxat before you leave the house.

Spring is the sweet spot: meadows yellow with cowslips, day temperatures in the teens, nights cold enough for proper sleep. May brings out the Segre’s kingfishers, June the first hay cut. By July the valley can hit 30 °C, but mornings stay crisp; locals still light kitchen stoves to boil coffee. Autumn smells of resin and smoke, the forest suddenly noisy with stag barks. This is when photographers appear, hoping for a red-dead-bracken postcard; they usually leave happy, if slightly disappointed there is no souvenir shop to celebrate.

Beds, buses and the baker’s round

The only hotel label in the parish belongs to Cal Zet, a converted townhouse in Montellà with five bedrooms, stone stairs you learn to negotiate in socks, and a wood-fired cooker that heats both radiators and hot water. Whole-house rental runs €270–300 per night; split between the advertised ten adults it works out cheaper than a Travelodge in Slough, though you must bring your own tea towels. Two smaller cottages advertise on rural platforms, but owners prefer weekly bookings and Saturday changeovers, awkward if you are tied to British half-term. Camping is theoretically possible at the river flats, but Spanish by-laws require a permit the ayuntamiento will not issue to tents—motorhomes under seven metres slip through at €5 a night, water tap by the football pitch.

Public transport exists, just. ALSA coaches link Barcelona (Estació del Nord) to La Seu d’Urgell in three hours; ask the driver for “parada de Montellà” and he will drop you at the junction. From there it is a 1 km uphill drag on a pavement that disappears whenever the verge narrows. Trains reach Puigcerdà from Barcelona Sants in similar time, but the connecting bus to Martinet runs only on schooldays and never at weekends. Hire cars wait at both Girona and Barcelona airports; allow €90 for the Catalan toll roads unless you detour via the C-16 mountain pass, prettier and only 20 minutes slower.

Leaving the valley clock behind

By the second evening you will have worked out the rhythm. Bread arrives with the tooting van or not at all; dinner is eaten early because the kitchen faces east and cools with the sunset; the internet flickers whenever the wind is from the north. What Montellà i Martinet offers is not an escape—escape suggests something you must flee—but a recalibration. The valley measured life in cows and church bells long before smartphones, and for a few days it lets you do the same. Just remember to buy your return ticket in advance: the coach stops only if it sees you waiting, and the driver will not brake for daydreams.