The Cerdanya is a high, wide, sunny valley in the eastern Pyrenees, shared between Catalonia and France, and its southern wall is the long limestone barrier of the Serra del Cadí. The Vall d'Ingla cuts into that wall just above Bellver de Cerdanya and the neighbouring village of Éller, and the rock shelter there is one of the archaeological traces of people who used these valleys long before towns and borders. You are inside the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, a protected area of pine forest, cliffs and high pasture.
Bellver de Cerdanya, a village of under two thousand people, sits on a hill above the Segre river, with a fortified old core and a small square. Puigcerdà, the capital of the Cerdanya, is sixteen kilometres east, and next to it lies Llívia, a little Spanish enclave entirely surrounded by France, left over from the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, which handed villages to France but not towns. Llívia counted as a town, and so it stayed Spanish.
The riding here is some of the best in Catalonia. The N-260 runs along the valley floor with fast, open curves and snow peaks on both sides. Climbing south, the road over the Collada de Toses toward Ribes de Freser is a classic of hairpins and long views, and the Cadí tunnel takes the C-16 under the range toward Berga, with a toll. Further west, the road to La Seu d'Urgell follows the Segre and leads to Andorra.
The Cerdanya is known for its sunshine, and the valley floor is broad and flat, which makes it feel almost like a plateau. Mornings can be cold even in summer. Cows graze in the meadows, trout fishermen work the rivers, and in autumn the larches turn gold on the slopes. Snow closes higher passes in winter, though main roads are kept open.
Bellver has a filling station and places to eat, and Puigcerdà has everything, including good restaurants serving trinxat, a dish of cabbage and potato with bacon that is the Cerdanya's signature. The roads up into the Vall d'Ingla are narrow and in places unpaved, so check the surface before taking a road bike up.