Arriba

Onwards and upwards ... work in the morning, and in the afternoon we decided to go for another walk. I chose the village of Samitier because it was said to offer lovely panoramic views, on yet another cloudless day. I hadn't expected it to be quite such a climb to the 11th-century castle and associated hermitage perched on a cliff, but hey, 250 metres is nothing to me now! Part way up is the Hermita de Nuestra Señora de Waldesca. Restored in the 90s, it's another one where the altar was littered with ex-votos, although most of these seemed rather secular in tone (see extra). They'd been scribbled on anything to hand: paper hankies, loo roll, till receipts ... some people had even re-used other people's ex-votos to add their own "I was here" message.

The castle itself is a ruin, but there were indeed fantastic views from the rocky pinnacle across the valley of the river Cinca towards Monte Perdido, and over the large Mediano reservoir (if you are surprised to see pylons in this photo, well, a lot of electricity generation gets done around here!). As we stood there we could see clouds literally rolling down the hill opposite us to fill the valley (that's a rock in the photo -- I took this from the castle). It was still warm in the sun, but chilly in the shadows. Time to set off back down -- once we got below the level of the clouds it was once more warm and sunny.

Limited photos because I forgot to charge the camera battery last night! With careful use, it lasted just until we got back to the car.