What to do today? Well, it'll be a good day for a hike, sunny and warm but not hot until afternoon. We head west towards Lleída, and there's a decent 13km walk along the bottom of a gorge that's pretty moderate. Let's do it.
The countryside dried out on our 90 minute drive, going from green and lush to dry and (well) flammable, but with interesting geological formations the entire way, big old buttes and cliffs of what we guessed were sandstone and limestone. As we approached the gorge, we were both looking forward to a good walk under the huge pink and gray cliffs that rise up north of Camarasa. This part of Spain reminded us of New Mexico, not Europe. Made a mental note to go motorcycling down these roads too--big modern roads, lots of sweeping curves, little traffic. The road from Camarasa to Sort, the C-13, looks particularly appealing, but I bet it gets rather slow past the hydro dams.
But then we got to the trailhead--and the dozen spaces to park your car were all taken. The road had no shoulders either, or pullouts, and we said 'hm, this is not going to be a hiking day', especially as the temperature had climbed from 23C to 33C.
So we looked around and decided a little visit to Lleida would be in order. See a modern art museum (good) and climb to the huge disused cathedral on the hill in the middle of the city (also good). Not too hot, and we found the secret cheat code to get up the hill, a pair of elevators from the main shopping street. Looked around, came back down, scored a pair of eclipse glasses from the tourist office. Lleida is just inside the path of totality, they'll get maybe 15 to 30 seconds, and it's on the plains far away from the mountains, so no late thunderstorms either.
An hour-long drive to our stay at the Parador de Cardona, an old castle turned hotel guarding the thousand year old salt mines. Some cava and a light dinner, then bed.
