Romanesque churches

Vall de Boí had its heyday during the 11^th and 12^th centuries, when every thriving teeny town could afford to hire expert stonemasons from Lombardy to build elegant teeny Romanesque churches, usually on the outskirts of town. (Had the teeny towns not been so bustling, there would still have been room in the center of town for a church.) The original church frescoes are gone, as is the plaster and paint that apparently once covered the tidy masonry, but the beautiful stonework and bell towers remain, and the churches continue to be used for worship. UNESCO declared the valley a world heritage site in 2000.

When we weren't hiking, we were admiring the churches, including

Santa Eulalia in Erill la Vall; and

Sant Climent in Taüll. At Sant Climent we learned that the stones of the churches would have been stuccoed and painted; there is a trace of an exterior stucco-and-paint job (presumably not original) at the top of this window:

Changes in stonework suggest Sant Climent was built in multiple stages:

The valley's most charming village--the one with the most tumble-stacked densely-packed collection of old stone houses--is Durro. Looking down at Durro from the hermitage de Sant Quirc (and squinting to fuzz up the modern apartment blocks built for skiers), one can imagine the village as the model for a medieval woodcut.