Hola,

This weekend, on June 12, was a one day trip that was sponsored by our program and we traveled to Rupit, which is about an hour north of Barcelona I believe. There was a bus of about 40 students from the program and we all had to meet bright and early to get our day started. We got to Rupit around 11 am and then it was time to start our hike, or Catalan Nature Walk as they called it. There was a cute town when we first pulled up and we crossed a hanging bridge to the “center of the town” which was more like 4 stores and an intersection of roads. We hiked through the mountains for about an hour and a half and it  was really pretty. There were 4 tour guides who were all really nice and one girl who spoke Catalan, Spanish, and English who was the translator for the other tour guides the whole time. The guys who were showing us the way also were trying to practice their English with us and got so excited when we could understand them! We walked passed a couple of waterfalls and finally came to the top of one of the mountains and saw an amazing view.

After the first part of the hike was pretty much over, we had another 15 minute walk to where we were having lunch and everyone was very excited for that. We ate at a place called Sant Joan de Fabregues, which was a small, Medieval castle looking place with a banquet room and outside area to eat and enjoy the view. They already had food on the table and place setting on the table for all of us when we arrived and it was so nicely set up! First, what we though was our whole meal but ended up being just the appetizers, we had a salad, huge platters of different kinds of meats, bread with tomatoe (very popular in Spain) and they also served us wine. We all filled up on all of this because we thought that was all they were giving us, then about 15 minutes later they came out with huge bowls of all assorted girlled meat! They had chicken, sausage, bacon, and other meats that looked delicious. I only had room for a piece of chicken though since I had already eaten about 12 pieces os bread. After that, when we all thought there couldn’t possible be more, they brought out treys of french fries. And finally, cake that was sooo good and coffee for dessert. It was the heartiest lunch ever! All of the people who worked there were so nice and there were a couple of kids working who were so helpful and knew some english and brought us whatever we wanted. After we ate there was some free time where we hung out outside and some of the tour guides were dancing for us. Sort of jokingly, one of my friends asked for a to go box for all the leftover meat because she didn’t want them throwing it all away and before we left they came out with a huge bag of meat for her!

Then we began our trek back to Rupit. There was about an hour longer of walking until we got back to town. It was really cool to see all of the buildings when we got closer and also all the trees and mountains that were in the distance. When we returned to town, we had about 20 minutes to wrap up the tour and go in the gift shop and just hang out until we headed back to Barcelona. All around it was a fun one day trip and something to do outside of Barcelona!

Adios,

Ali

Location: Rupit, Spain