Olot is one of those towns I’ve heard of that I’d
been wanting to visit but hadn’t. I’d
heard that the town is nice, that it is located in a very pretty area and is
surrounded by volcanoes. There are
forests of deciduous trees making it a good place to go for fall color (next
year!), and the area is quite green because it rains a lot. There is a saying that if it isn’t raining in
Olot, it isn’t raining anywhere (in Catalunya).
Besides a lot of rain, there are also a lot of volcanoes.
Forty volcanoes surround Olot. Four of them are actually within the
town. Thankfully, they aren’t active,
and there was no fire or brimstone the day I went.
That was last Sunday. I met up with an English-speaking group in
the Placa Major. This was the same group
I went with to Banyoles a few weeks ago.
This time there were two Brits, one Vietnamese, one South African, one
Basque/Catalan, one Catalan, one Russian, and one other American besides me.
Much of what I’ve heard about Olot I’ve heard from
my mailman, Joan. Joan recently moved to
Olot from Figueres. He says it’s much
prettier there and closer to nature. I
think he’s right. I was telling this to
one of the people in our party when lo and behold, there was Joan, standing in
the street. We threw our arms around
each other like long-lost friends and everyone in my party was duly impressed
that I knew people everywhere.
We only walked up to the top of one of the four
volcanoes in town, admired it and the view and then walked across town to have
lunch in a pretty restaurant out in the countryside on the other side. But clearly there is more for me to explore
in Olot, and being only 40 minutes away, I’ll be back there soon.
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| Up the volcano |
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| The Montsacopa Volcano crater |
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| The Fluvia River |
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| Crossing the fields |
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| Lunch! |
