Day 7. l'Esquirol - Vic-Sau Parador (21.1 km) and Sant Pere de Casserres (8.4 km RT from the Parador)
Today is a fabulous, red-letter, five-star day, taking us up to the monastery of St Pere de Casserres, on its eyrie over the river.
Laurie's track:
http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/spatialArtifacts.do?event=setCurrentSpatialArtifact&id=10903645
Many people walk straight to Vic from l'Esquirol. But for us the Romanesque demands a stop here. If you don't want to stay at the Parador, but
do want to visit Sant Pere, you can do what Laurie did, which was to call a taxi from the Parador at the end of the day to take you to Vic.
There are a few other options for places to stay nearby (see below).
We come very close to the monastery about 5 km after L'Esquirol, and it looks worth a short detour just after the industrial area at Teuleria del Pont to the mirador above the river - especially if you plan to go straight to Vic without visiting. It's a tad less than 300m as the eagle flies from the closest mirador, but unless you brought your jetpack, it will take some time get there from here!
The route for today is quite straightforward until we cross the bridge over the Riu Ter at Roda de Ter. It's at this point that we can first leave the camino to go up to the Parador and Monastery.
There are a bunch of ways to get there, the two main marked off-road routes being the local PR-C40 and the GR210. The GR is soon after the bridge, and the PR is quite a way farther along:
Laurie's track is the purple line. Either way will get you there. But the main thing to look for are the neolithic sites part way up. It would be easy to take another route and miss them altogether. They are the pointer on this map:
So above Tavernoles, make sure to take the right fork. It's longer, but who would want to miss this to save a few steps.
Here's Laurie's summary:
I walked on the Camí from L'Esquirol to a spot about 8 km before Vic. At that spot there was a sign for the PR-C40, which is a local trail to the monastery of Sant Pere. First, the route goes through the very nice little town of Tanyoles with its pretty romanesqe church.
In fact, it would be easy to slice a few kms off this walk, because there was a sign pointing the way to the center of Tanyoles long before I got on the PR-C40. But this was such a nice walk, I wouldn't work hard to shorten it. From Tanyoles, the trail was rugged and overgrown in some spots, but all in all it was amazing.
My first surprise was several neolithic sites from about 2500 BC. One was a sacrificial altar (Pedra del Sacrifici) and the other was a burial ground (you can see a human figure carved in the rock). They were just sitting there out in the open in the middle of the woods. I was impressed. A totally unexpected bonus.
If we visit the monastery first thing after spending the night at the Parador, there is the benefit of having the place to ourselves, as
@alansykes did:
When @peregrina2000 suggests a detour it's usually worth the extra effort. So it was this year with Sant Pere de Casserres, a largely 11th century Benedictine monastery perched high up on a narrow peninsular over a loop where the Ter River turns into the Sau reservoir. It's not easy to get to (the path is narrow and sometimes steep and overgrown) and it's not near anywhere - ~10km off from Roda de Ter on the camino, and c20km back to it at Vic - but it is serenely lovely, both in its position and its architecture. And of course, arriving at opening time of 10am, I had the place entirely to myself, other than the custodian and an eagle overhead.
According to Google, Peak visiting time looks to be at noon, with the afternoon being equally quiet.
It looks fantastic:
www.santperedecasserres.cat
There is a restaurant there that made it into a Guardian article as one of the best restaurants in rural Spain, largely because of the view.
From the mountains of northern Spain to the beaches of Andalucía and across to the Balearics, our readers have discovered fantastic places to eat
amp.theguardian.com
If you are looking for other accommodation besides the parador, there are options, but limited ones, and neither as convenient as the parador:
Not far away is a CR, Fusimaniya, but it looks like you need to hire the whole house.
www.fussimanya.cat
Farther down, in Tavernoles, there is the El Nou Roquet Restaurant Hostal, which is quoted at 61€ on Booking.com.