Vic is the capital of Osona, a prosperous market town of nearly forty thousand people in a high, fertile basin about seventy kilometres north of Barcelona, and it is the natural stopping point on the way to the Pyrenees. The main square, the Plaça Major, is a huge cobbled space ringed by arcades and old houses, and on Tuesdays and Saturdays it fills with stalls selling vegetables, cheese and cured meats. The Saturday market has been a fixture for centuries, and it is a good place to buy a sausage for the road.
The town has a Roman temple, whose columns stand in the middle of a medieval street, a cathedral with striking twentieth-century murals by the Catalan painter Josep Maria Sert and a museum with one of the finest collections of Romanesque and Gothic art in Europe. Vic is also the capital of Catalan charcuterie, famous for its fuet, its botifarra and its llonganissa, the long, thin, dry sausage that hangs in every shop window. During Holy Week, the town hosts the Mercat del Ram, a big fair that sells palm leaves, crafts and farm produce.
North of Vic, the road climbs towards the Collada de Toses, a pass at about eighteen hundred metres on the N-152, the old road from Barcelona to Puigcerdà. The ride is a long run up through Ripoll and the valley of the Freser, a series of climbing bends through forest and meadow, with the peaks of the Pyrenees ahead. In winter, the pass can be icy, and snow chains are sometimes required, so check the conditions before you set out. The destination, La Molina, is a ski resort, and an overnight stay there is a good break.
Vic has fuel stations, supermarkets and a wide choice of restaurants, so it is the best place to fill up before the mountains, because the stations thin out beyond Ripoll. Gurb and Santa Eugènia de Berga have a few services. Start early in summer, when the heat can be fierce, and carry warm clothing, because the temperature on the pass can be ten degrees colder than in the town. A sausage sandwich from the market, eaten on a bench in the sun, is a fine way to start.