Sat, May 28 The early morning clouds cleared off quickly and we had sunshine all day. This beautiful hotel and lands have been in the Pallarès family since 1763. The hotel was started in 1931 by Josep, the grandfather of the present owner, as farming in this area is difficult with drought a common occurrence. The hotel has been a success and the first tourist facility in the area. Wonderful staff and amazing attention to detail!
After breakfast we drove again north to the small city of Le Seu d’Urgell, about 20 km south of the Andorran border. The plan was to drive into the mountains on small roads as we did yesterday, but explore the north side of the Serra de Cadí. We drove into park land and found the north side of the mountain range to be more lush and rolling and heavily forested, as opposed to the more stark and rocky south.
We drove to an overlook of the village of Gósol and a view of Pedraforca, a popular hiking mountain with two peaks. We could see about 20 people on top with our binocs. Cows with their clanking cowbells are all over!
We ate some Toblerone, stopped to stretch our legs, and hiked and looked at flowers for an hour. Just beautiful intense yellow gorse, a blue columbine and the last pink peony of the season. We’ve seen tons of peonies fruiting, but this is the only one still flowering.
We returned to the hotel to relax and watched the French open for a while until it was superseded by handball match between Madrid and Hungary.
We found out that dinner is actually being served early at 7:45 this evening so people can dine and then watch the game which starts at 9 PM. We had our regular table, yesterday’s bottle of water saved for us (!) but we were the only ones in this dining room. Next door the room was jammed…maybe they’re all Spanish and want to see the game whereas our dining companions couldn’t care less and want to dine late, as usual?? As usual, we don’t have a clue!
We had another wonderful dinner, nevertheless! We started with a watermelon/tomato gazpacho soup which I will have to try to duplicate. Then I had crumbled sausage with a variety of mushrooms, which RRZ had a small square of chicken cannelloni. For our mains, I had “pieces of veal jaws” in rich gravy on mashed potatoes with two spun somethings on the side, and Bob had slices of pork belly with fruit accompaniments.
For dessert I had cherry soup with a little ice cream and one of the chef’s bread flavored bits of fluff. Bob had apricots with anise sauce. Really good and unique, as usual!
Up to our room to watch the big game….2-1 FC (fútbol club) Barça so far! FCB won! 3-1!!
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