Puigcerdà

The lake comes first. One moment you're threading between concrete apartment blocks, the next an expanse of dark water opens up with the 2,700 m peaks of Cadí-Moixeró mirrored in it. No signs prepare you; the Estany de Puigcerdà simply arrives, ringed by a gravel path that locals treat like their private promenade. Joggers overtake grandmothers with shopping trolleys, and a teenage girl practises trombone scales on a bench while ducks queue for crusts. It's a municipal reservoir built in the thirteenth century that forgot to stop being beautiful.

At 1,200 m above sea level, the air is thin enough to make the first glass of cava feel like two. The town sits on a natural shelf above the vast Cerdanya basin, a sun-trap so wide and bright that doctors once sent tubercular patients here to heal. That luminosity still pulls in the modern equivalents: weekend skiers from Toulouse, Barcelona families fleeing August humidity, and the odd British couple who've twigged that Girona airport is ninety minutes away via a toll road that costs less than a pint.

Puigcerdà isn't pretty in the postcard sense. Franco-era blocks elbow up against stone houses, and the main drag, Carrer d'Enveig, carries more diesel than romance. Yet the mix works. You can buy farmhouse cheese from a woman who speaks only Catalan, then walk fifty metres to a boutique selling neon ski goggles. The place functions as frontier trading post first, beauty spot second – always has. Its name means "fortified hill", a reminder that this was the final Spanish stop on the medieval route to Toulouse.

What the old town still keeps

Start at the free car park behind the lake – Passeig del Rec, flat, guarded by plane trees. From here the town tilts gently upwards towards the remains of the castle quarter. The streets narrow, gradients stiffen; push-chair users often discover muscles they last used on the Tube escalators at Russell Square. Halfway up, the solitary bell-tower of Santa María skewers the sky, all that survived a Civil War shelling in 1938. When it's open (check with the tourist office opposite the convent – hours shift like mountain weather) the climb rewards with a 360-degree inventory of the valley: France to the north, ski pistes to the south, and the odd red-and-yellow Catalan flag flapping like a dare.

Below the tower, the old Jewish quarter has mutated into a grid of gastrobars and estate agents, but the medieval drains still run open between houses, gurgling with melt-water. Locals call it "music from the stones". Follow the sound downhill and you spill into Plaça Santa Maria, where Restaurant Kennedy sets out ten-euro menu del día tables beneath heaters that smell faintly of kerosene. Three courses, wine, bread, and the waiter will translate "trinxat" as "Catalan bubble-and-squeak with bacon" – close enough to make Brits feel at home.

Seasons that change the furniture

Winter turns the town into a logistical hub. At dawn, the Avinguda de Catalunya fills with roof-racked cars crawling towards La Molina and Masella, the twin ski domains fifteen minutes away. Lift passes bought online save queuing; without them you risk standing behind French school parties who regard personal space as a quaint English notion. By five the same cars return, skis caked with spring slush, drivers hunting for hot chocolate and parking spaces. Book accommodation early for February half-term – the French cross the border en masse, and Puigcerdà's fifty-odd hotels fill like cabs in the rain.

Come May, the ski crowd evaporates. Meadows above the town flare yellow with buttercups, and the weekly market reclaims Carrer Major. Stallholders sell wild asparagus, pale and delicate as bone china, alongside tractor parts. Temperatures hit 20 °C by midday but plunge to 5 °C after dark – bring a fleece even for June. This is when hikers appear, clutching the Cerdanya circular route map that links stone villages in ten-kilometre bites. The path to nearby Bolvir is push-chair friendly; the detour to medieval Llo requires knees of a different vintage.

August flips the switch again. Spanish second-home owners arrive, the lake path becomes a toddler motorway, and getting a terrace table involves tactical patience. Yet dawn remains mercifully empty. Walk the lake at seven, watch mist lift off the water like a theatre curtain, and you'll understand why locals tolerate the crowds for the other eleven months.

Practicalities without the brochure tone

Fly to Girona with Ryanair or Jet2 – currently twenty UK routes. Collect bags quickly; the airport Spar shuts at 21:30 and Puigcerdà's small supermarkets follow suit soon after. The C-16 toll costs €11.40 each way; keep the ticket handy, barriers still swallow cards whole on occasion. Trains reach the town from Barcelona Sants twice daily, but the station sits two kilometres out. Taxis refuse cards at weekends; carry cash.

Parking is free behind the lake or paid in the blue zones near Plaça de l'Ajuntament. Traffic wardens work Monday to Saturday; a ticket looks like a flimsy receipt and costs €60 if ignored. English is spoken in hotels, less so in bars. A halting "Bon dia" earns warmer service than perfect Castilian Spanish – this is Catalonia, after all.

For coffee, avoid the lakefront cafés charging Paris prices. Head to Café del Pont on Avinguda 11 de Setembre, where a cortado costs €1.60 and the owner keeps biscuits on the counter for walk-in toddlers. Dinner options cluster around the main squares: Fabian for pizza (black-truffle version, European champion 2019), or La Pampa if you need red meat after a week of ham. Vegetarians survive on roasted escalivada and the local goat cheese, formatge de tupí, which tastes like Brie that has spent time in a wine cellar.

The honest verdict

Puigcerdà will not make you gasp. It offers no fairy-tale bridge, no Michelin-starred pilgrimage, no beach. What it does give is altitude without attitude – a working town where you can drink decent Rioja for three euros, walk safe pavements after midnight, and be on a ski lift or a mountain trail within twenty minutes. Come expecting cobblestone perfection and you'll notice the graffiti. Come prepared for a place that lives first, welcomes second, and the Pyrenean light will do the rest.