We should have gone skiing today, but the forecast was snowy and we didn’t fancy it. It was a mistake as it wasn’t flyable either. We worked until 3.30pm when we felt we needed (and deserved) a break. By way of light relief we went to Besalu to go round the recently restored and opened Jewish baths. Despite what it says on their opening times, it was closed. So what to do? I had a brain wave and we went for a walk down memory lane.

When we first came to this area on holiday thirteen years ago  there was a tree house on the road just outside Argelaguer (between Besalu and Castellfollit). When I say house, actually it was more like a tree castle. It spanned 4 trees with bridges and platforms connecting the buildings. Each had at least one high (30ft) tower, some had several turrets, etc. It was all made of scrap: branches, old bed posts, pallets, etc. There were benches and hammocks made of barrels and crazy sculptures made of old buckets and baskets. It looked like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral but made in wood. You could freely climb around and climb the towers. When we went there in 1996, the guy had been building it about 15 years, so it was massive. You could see it from the road and it would sometimes cause minor accidents when tourists would slam their brakes on to get a look at this strange construction poking out of the trees. After a couple of years the builder/owner felt he had gone as far as he could with the tree house bit and decided to build a maze around the place. It was made of tunnels made of branches. You then had to climb all around this labyrinth to actually get to the tree house and he integrated it into the maze, so the challenge became to work through this maze to climb the towers.

So as never to bore the local children, he would change the paths, so you couldn’t use the same route twice. He put little jokes in the maze, like in a dead end you’d find a mannequin’s legs sticking out of the ground with a sign above saying “Here lies the body of a tourist who never found the exit again!”. To make a long story short (too late!) it was absolutely brilliant. A free adventure playground, living sculpture and just unbelievable piece of engineering. So good, it made it into National Geographic magazine.

In 2002 they started to build the dual carriageway and they decided the tree house would have to be torn down to make way for the road. In the spring of 2003 we climbed around and up the highest tower for the last time and it was really sad. There were petitions and small protests, but it was still demolished. When we came back the following September, it was mostly gone and just a small tower left. So much for the history lesson…

Recently as we have been driving past the site, we have seen bits of the labyrinth re-built and a tall tower has shot up from the trees again. The gentleman who builds the place is getting on in years so we didn’t think he would bother again. So today we went and had a look. He obviously started again straight away as the place is huge. He’s integrated the culvert under the dual carriageway to create a glade with amazing water features, sculptures, etc. The maze is massive again and there are two towers. You have to go over and under stuff, squeeze through little openings and you are sometimes under the roots of the trees. We were so happy climbing around and eventually we found our way up the tallest tower again. Then we realised that time was getting on and we had to get our skates on to find our way out again before nightfall. Great fun!

See photos of today.

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