The hottest day on the Camino de Santiago in Catalonia, Spain | From Pont de Bar to Seu d’Urgell

We had a very good night at the camping Pont d’Ardaix, it was thunderstorming a bit in the evening again but then it was all calm and quiet.

For the day 3 we planned to do the same distance again as all the previous days – around 20 kms. And our final point was the town of Seu d’Urgell in the province of Lleida.

We did realize that the trail probably would be quite challenging and hard because of the mountains around us and the extreme July heat that was staying with us everyday. So we wanted to get ready as quickly as possible and to conquer the main mountain of the day before the midday heat comes.

At first the marking of the way was quite good and we barely had to use our GPS. We were running out of food having only some fruit and chocolate left so we were a bit worried whether we have enough supplies for the day, cause we knew that till the end of the day we won’t meet any shop.

First several kms the trail was easy and almost flat going through the forest and little village Pont de Bar Vell. In this village we met the cutest animal ever – little baby donkey pasturing with his parents. So we were lucky to spend some time with them. We got to enjoy the great views of the mountain summit and gorge on the way.

Then we had to walk for about 1.5 kms on the car road having no signs of the way whatsoever. Only GPS and downloaded trail on Wikiloc helped us to find the right direction. It’s just the reality of this trail that sometimes you don’t see any marking and suddenly in the middle of nowhere you find the sign again.

When we got to the village Arseguel we lost our track once again, having hard time wandering through the narrow streets of the old town.

Then the way was going through the forest for some time and it was the best part of the day for sure. Lots of shadow, singing birds and very quiet – everything you need on a hot day. We had our snack at the riverside and continued to go up.

The way down from this mountain was much harder than we thought, there were lots of falling little rocks down the paths and they made it very challenging to keep a good balance. When the steepest part was done it felt like a great relief to be able to walk on a flat ground.

The rest of the way was mostly flat and easy (quite boring though) going through the farmer’s houses and fields. Just the hot sun was striking our heads and in the end we felt pretty exhausted.

But the reward was getting to the big supermarket and buying loads of food(way more than we actually needed). And with all the strength we have left we finally got to our campground.

Here is the link to Google map to follow the hike: