Our family trip to La Garrotxa

This past weekend, Alexis surprised Jacques and I with a 3-day family get-away to La Garrotxa to go explore el Parc Natural de La Zona Volcanica. As the name implies, this park contains over 40 volcanic cones to explore, and is surrounded by acres of beautiful forests and many wonderful small villages. Being only 2 hours by car from Barcelona, this natural park was the perfect place for our little family to escape to for a weekend together! Luckily for us, since this past weekend was one of the busiest vacation weekends in Spain before Christmas, Alexis was able to find a great room on short-notice in a small rural house outside of Olot (the biggest town in La Garrotxa).

El Parc Natural de la Zona Volcanica

We missed the leaves changing colors...but the remaining ones were beautiful

We spent our 2 full days in La Garrotxa hiking and taking full advantage of all the nature, since Alexis, Jacques and I haven't been hiking since our trip to Montserrat with my sister, Becky, 2 months ago. The first day we decided to explore the 2 best-known volcanos in the park, Croscat and Santa Margarida. We weren't sure of how much hiking we would be able to do, using Jack as an excuse...even though in reality it's because Alexis and I haven't been that active in the past few months. Anyway, long story short...we quickly re-discovered how much we love hiking and being in the woods and ended up completing a 10 km (~4hr) round trip hike of the two volcanos and La Fageda d'en Jorda (a beautiful beech tree forest between the two volcanos).

Thanks for carrying me Papa!

Taking a much needed break from hiking! I think Mama missed Jacques

Unfortunately, we weren't sure how far we would go when we started the hike, so we only had the bare minimums for us (water and yummy manderines...Jack of course was equipped like a king). I was the one responsible for carrying the daypack...so I have only laziness to blame =p. Anyway, we ended up completing the hike around 3 and having a late picnic lunch at the base of the volcano. At the end I must admit that I did get a bit tired. Alexis was a wonderful husband though and offered to not only carry Jacques but the daypack as well. Thank goodness because otherwise I might still be sitting at the base of the Croscat volcano!

What a funny looking camel...one hump in front and the other in back

The next day we were equally ambitious, despite our sore legs from the hike the day before. We started the morning with a factory tour of our favorite yogurt brand, La Fageda. La Fageda is a small Catalan company which is well known for employing mostly mentally disabled persons...they make truely the best yogurt and chocolate pudding in town! Since this is by-far my favorite brand of dairy products, I was more than excited to be able to see where everything is produced. One of the best discoveries of the trip!

The milk producers of La Fageda

Following our factory tour, Alexis, Jacques and I attemped another loop-hike. This time we chose a much easier loop of 17 km (~5 hr) to see some of the other less explored volcanos in the park, such as the Can Tia and Traiter volcanos. This trail was by-far a much less traveled route than the one we did the day before (I never crossed so many people hiking in my life...or said buen dia that many times in a row), but half of the route was on an old paved road through the country-side. In the end, this route was fantastic...we got to see a lot of old Spanish country homes and countryside and we only passed one or two hikers and cars at the most. This time we were prepared, and were able to enjoy our picnic lunch on the volcano summit with Jacques. No low blood-sugar level for Marie...whoo...

A beautiful old Spanish farmhouse

Our last day in La Garrotxa was only a half day, so we took the opportunity to go explore two small villages, Castellfollit de la Roca and Besalu, one of which is famous for being built on a cliff and the other for a very impressive bridge that gives access into the old town (I'll let you guess which one is which). The day was perfect with just enough sunlight...

Hope nobody is afraid of heights!

Since it was impossible to pick only a few pictures from our magical winter trip to La Garrotxa, we have uploaded a photo album with all of the pictures we loved from the trip. Just click on our family picture below to see the album! Enjoy!

our familly trip to la Garrotxa

For all of you who are curious, Jacques was an amazing baby for the whole trip, even though his whole schedule was upside down. Jacques normally loves to take naps in his crib, but he quickly learned that naptime is also to be enjoyed on his Papa's chest walking through the forest and in his stroller bouncing along on the old copplestone roads. Our biggest concern though was dinner-time, since breakfast was quickly eaten in the hotel and lunch was always picnics outside. Alexis and I tried to go to dinner early (8:00 or 8:30...early for Spain and normally just when the restaurants open) so Jack could be in his bed as early as possible. For the most part this worked out great, the night after our first hike he was too exhausted and slept through all of dinner and the night after that he was awake but happily taking in his surroundings. I must admit I was definitely a bit nervious...but the whole trip went great! Well I hope you all enjoy the pictures. Jacques was particularly smiley this trip...so its all the more reason to check them out!