Plank Road: Volcanic Landscape of the Garrotxa

We needed a change of scenery today so we chose to walk in the volcanic area of the Garrotxa near Olot. This is the best preserved volcanic region on the Iberian peninsula, with more than 40 volcanoes. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon, but we had brilliant blue skies and warm temperatures all day.

When we reached the parking lot, it was rather obvious that the locals were out in force. This was the first time we had quite a few other people around on our walk. It was busy with families and all kinds of people who know the area well, as we were the only ones consulting a guidebook as we walked. The place is exceptionally well signed and the paths are well trodden. In this area, the greetings on the paths by fellow walkers were all in Catalan.

This type of walk really isn’t our thing, as we don’t normally take in these leisure types of walks, but we thought the volcanic landscape would be of interest. It certainly was, but the vast majority of the walk was through insipid forest. The walk was 10 km and took a little less than three hours.

Things got interesting once we reached the rim of the crater of Santa Margarida, the crater is absolutely huge. There is a cool house at the top of the crater called Can Santa that is built out of volcanic rock, the colours are beautiful. In the bottom of the crater, along with lounging locals, is the chapel of Santa Margarida, a simple little structure of stone.

The trail headed to Croscat Volcano. Croscat is the youngest volcano of the region, having erupted 11,500 years ago. It is a horseshoe shape due to the river of lava that flowed out of the volcano, the lava flow travelled 6 km and formed a lake by blocking the Fluvia river. One cannot visualize what is going on here as the volcano is huge and covered in trees, and the trail enters an area that was quarried. However, a sign board indicated that the crater is on the other side, from which the lava river flowed. On the trail side, there is a wedge sliced out of the cone where they removed a lot of volcanic earth for construction.

Quarrying of the cone has all come to a halt of course, as the volcanic region was made into a nature park in 1982. The colours are really vibrant in the sunshine, when the volcano material cools after eruption, it is black, but then it turns red from oxidization.

After returning to the car, we decided to take an alternate route home. On the Michelin map we noted a couple of viewpoints up a twisty narrow road that went up high into a mountain.

The first viewpoint was referred to as Santuari la Salut, there is some type of old church building along with a restaurant which was closed, but the patio had stupendous views. The next viewpoint was further up the mountain with some hairpin turns, it was called Santuari del Far.

Del Far is another old church building with a bell tower that looked like a repurposed defensive tower. There was also an attached restaurant that was open. There are restaurants all over the place, even up winding dead-end roads on mountain tops in the middle of nowhere. The views from here were just tremendous, we could see all the way to Girona and to the Mediterranean. It was really high up, we looked way down onto the tops of trees. It was all fabulous and well worth the detour up the dead-end road, but even these tiny roads out in the hinterland are beautifully paved and in top notch condition.

Volcanic area