A historic single-track train line through the foothills of the Pyrenees opens up a pristine wilderness of forests, gorges and thundering rivers
Alighting at the train station of Santa Linya in northern Spain, I paused to wonder what the railway engineers were thinking. A rough halt hewn out of the mountainside, with no ticket office, no waiting room, no sign of human habitation – just a single platform in the wilderness. On the far side of the track, a shimmering turquoise lake flanked by pine forests. Ahead – the only way out – a rocky trail snaking up the limestone cliff.
My husband and I had first strayed into this western corner of Catalonia – Pallars Jussà – on our honeymoon road trip 21 years earlier. Seduced by its dramatic landscape of canyons, lakes, crumbling ruins and the formidable Noguera Pallaresa river thundering south from the Pyrenees, we had vowed to return one day. He loves mountains, I love water, we both love abandoned buildings; it was a geographical match made in heaven. Now those vows had come good – we were back, on a mission to go deeper into the hinterland.