However, the hiking trail was snowed under when I jumped off the bus. Without snowshoes or cross-country skis, I took the 2km-long tarmacked road instead. Churches rise high above every village in Val d"Aran, and there was one standing tall at the entrance to Bagergue. Constructed in a local Romanesque style that was popular in the Middle Ages, Val d"Aran"s churches were built not only as places of worship, but as castles, watchtowers and fortifications designed to guard the frontier.