Heading to La Seu d’Urgell

Just south of Andorra, still in the Spanish Pyrenees. The scenery has been breathtaking. Snow capped high mountains. The motorways are excellent, some established, some recently opened ( such as cool experience to be on a brand new motorway) and hardly any traffic and some under construction so quite a few diversions.
I just pulled off for a coffee, only to be confronted by a huge group of police cars, soldiers and all bristling with guns. I thought I was in for a frisking but thankfully they waved me through and in to the service area. I asked the lady behind the counter what was going on but she didn’t know 🤷. I didn’t take a photo 😄

Now in La Seu d’Urgell. Site sits in the shadow of the mountains. There is a fast flowing river that runs just by the camp site. I walked along the river in to town and discovered that it is a centre for white water canoeing and hosted the Olympics in 1992. The town square is full of amazing looking Plain trees. It’s dry today but not sunny and being quite high up I’m expecting it to get quite chill tonight!

The Seminary;

It replaced an earlier seminary founded in 1592, which had become inadequate for training clergy. 

When it was built, the project was massive for the region. The church had to create supporting infrastructure such as:

Historically, the seminary trained future Catholic priests for the Diocese of Urgell, whose territory includes parts of Catalonia and has a unique political role: the bishop of Urgell is co-prince of Andorra (one of the two heads of state).

The building is now being repurposed to create a mental health institution.