La Cerdanya is one of the most beautiful, finest counties in Catalonia. It is a large casserole, structured on the course of the Segre, with the funny feature of falling slightly, gently, from east to west, in an inclined plane. It is not a great sunken valley, but a reclining valley. Surrounded by high mountains that border on three thousand meters, the Cerdanya is not depressing, like so many Pyrenean places; it produces, on the contrary, a feeling of breadth, of elevation, of luminosity, of freedom. Its skies are splendid, its air is fine, its landscapes have an endearing tenderness. (…)


In La Cerdanya, the panoramic views are extremely beautiful, but the details match them and sometimes surpass them; they are incomparable. From anywhere on the outskirts of the valley – as long as it is a little high – the region rises in all its radiant and luminous splendor, just as from anywhere in the valley appears the mountainous amphitheater that encloses it and forms three overlapping colors: the pink snow of the high peaks; the blackish green of the firs and pines of the middle mountain and the lighter green, burnished, cheerful, peaceful, of the meadows, of the poplars, of the alders, of the poplars. The composition of these three colors creates a landscape of perfect order, of great elegance.


Josep Pla (1897-1981) Guide to Catalonia 1972. Editorial Destino