Sun, May 15 - Note: If you would rather receive these blog posts by email, rather that search for my Blogspot website, just let me know - it’s really easy to set up.
We slept in but still felt sleepy when we finally got up at 8. We had a last delicious breakfast at Geni’s - best OJ in the world, great eggs, pastries, and returned to pack up. We got everything ready and then the electricity went off, and as we’re on the 18th floor, there was nothing to do but wait. It returned 20 minutes later and there was big rush for the elevators but we made it out and the charming bell boy got us a jolly cabbie to take us to the airport to pick up our rental car for the rest of the trip.
Bob had booked with Victoria Car Rental, as it was half the price of the big chains. We had been told to meet their van at a particular spot in the airport parking garage, and we found two guys with a little portable table on which to fill in the paper work, which we did and off they went leaving with us the keys to a very nice Turbo Diesel Peugeot. We’re supposed to return the car by slipping the key into an envelope and inserting it into the slightly open window of another car…hope we aren’t driving a hot car!!
We immediately got onto the AutoPista 7 at about 11:30, heading south along the coast, drove through seven tunnels, passed Tarragona, and turned inland at a beach town called Miami. We left the coastal plain and quickly drove into craggy limestone mountains, ~2500’ high, pine forests, lush agricultural valleys, and after less two hours, found the kilometer marker for our hotel, Mas Mariassa! This is a three-year-old seven-bed lovely hotel in an old farmhouse, elegantly and simply furnished and run by a gourmet chef. The hotel is in a small valley, practically by itself, surrounded by artichokes, peach, cherry and hazelnut trees. We were greeted by three very friendly dogs and relaxed on a terrace platform with a large cotton awning and several chairs and lounges where we drank orange Fanta, ate the hotel-grown olives, and entertained the dogs!
We drove a very short distance to the village of Pratdip, a classic Spanish town of narrow streets and capped by a castle. In this case the castle is the smallest I‘ve ever seen, but it fits the village and stands on a stony peak on one side of the town. We parked outside the town and walked in - a good idea as the streets got smaller and narrower as we progressed. We climbed up to the remaining bit of castle and had lovely views of the surrounding farms.
Dinner is not served until nine (we chose the four-course Market dinner rather than the seven--course tasting menu), so we drove to the coast in search of snacks…very difficult to find on a Sunday! We drove around a beach town finding nothing and returned to the highway where spotted a gas station! We drove over only to find that it was really an elaborate toll booth, and we had no choice but to get on the Autopista again!! We finally found a rest stop and bought soda, cookies and candy to keep us going and returned home.
At 8:30 we went downstairs and got gin & tonics and delicious very dry white wine. Spain has double Daylight Savings, so the sun doesn’t set until just after nine, so it is not too difficult to eat this late.
(the fish course)
We went into the small dining room and had a fantastic dinner, which started out with a plate of toasts and a pitcher of olive oil and a dish with four salts on it: white, jet black, pale green and orange. All different and delicious! That was followed by a bowl of puree of fresh peas with a dried ham garnish, then lovely fillets of a small local fish on red pepper puree and eggplant. The meat course was a delicious veal steak with mushrooms, and zucchini. The dessert consisted of very thin ribbons of banana over a caramel custard. Tomorrow we are going to try the tasting menu - can’t wait!
Mon, May 16 - I slept in late while Hilary and Bob took a walk and found some hiking trails nearby. Breakfast is served at 9am and we found a great buffet of cheeses, hazelnuts, fruit, ham, great breads and a carafe of fresh OJ on our table.
The plan today was to explore the l’Ebre delta and look for several birds. The river has created a huge delta, most of which was converted into rice paddies over 100 years ago, but some fortunately has been preserved. Hilary did a stellar job of driving over endless tiny roads weaving our way around rice fields to the reserve. We walked a ways and found lots of tiny brilliant blue beetles (Hoplia
Caerulea) on grass stems. The walk-way wound along a canal with lots of charter fishing boast and larger boats for cruising the water ways, bike paths, art sculptures…quite a mixture! Bob right off saw the Audouin’s Gull, one of the rarest gull in the world - 90% of them live right here - grey and white body, bright red bill, tipped in black and black legs - quite spiffy! There are several hides set into the marshes from which one has a better chance of seeing the birds. There we got great views of the Little Egret and Black-winged Stilt. Suddenly in the middle of nowhere we came upon busloads of kids on school expeditions and elders on daytrips, and massive booths of knick-knacks. We decided to stop for bocadillos (sandwiches on baguettes) and soda as it’s a long time until dinner.
We had been exploring the north half of the delta and now had to backtrack to the highway in order to get to the southern half. The roads on the southern half lead out to a large beach and a long neck of land . Hil managed to drive 5 km on a sandy track without getting bogged down thankfully! We walked out to the Mediterranean and measured the water temp: 72 degrees! Much of the land was cordoned off as nesting is taking place, but we could see the gulls tending to their crude nests.
We headed back to the hotel and arrived about 7 and collapsed for a short while until dinner. I’m writing this at 11:45pm as there’s no other time to fit this in!!
There were only three tables this evening. Our amazing chef produced a wonderful seven-course tasting menu for us and four-courses for the other two tables.
We started off with the wonderful toasts, olive oil and variety of salts. We were drinking Fillaboa white wine of this region and started off with a plate containing a small roasted tomato with a scallion and bit of dried fish. #2 was a poached quail egg with chorizo bits, slices of potato and black truffle shavings. #3 was a soup of intense fish and shellfish broth with a whole shrimp. Then we got a bottle of Masia Esplanes 2005 local red wine, and #4: a salad of very tender green with tomato, goat cheese, and tiny cubes of a sweet guava (?) paste. #5 was the fish course of bacalao (cod) in a lemon sauce with spinach in an intense sweet sauce. #6 was the meat course of pale veal scallops with porcinis and a touch of anise. Finally the postre of fresh strawberry sorbet! What a meal!
(#1)
This place is amazing!
We slept in but still felt sleepy when we finally got up at 8. We had a last delicious breakfast at Geni’s - best OJ in the world, great eggs, pastries, and returned to pack up. We got everything ready and then the electricity went off, and as we’re on the 18th floor, there was nothing to do but wait. It returned 20 minutes later and there was big rush for the elevators but we made it out and the charming bell boy got us a jolly cabbie to take us to the airport to pick up our rental car for the rest of the trip.
Bob had booked with Victoria Car Rental, as it was half the price of the big chains. We had been told to meet their van at a particular spot in the airport parking garage, and we found two guys with a little portable table on which to fill in the paper work, which we did and off they went leaving with us the keys to a very nice Turbo Diesel Peugeot. We’re supposed to return the car by slipping the key into an envelope and inserting it into the slightly open window of another car…hope we aren’t driving a hot car!!
We immediately got onto the AutoPista 7 at about 11:30, heading south along the coast, drove through seven tunnels, passed Tarragona, and turned inland at a beach town called Miami. We left the coastal plain and quickly drove into craggy limestone mountains, ~2500’ high, pine forests, lush agricultural valleys, and after less two hours, found the kilometer marker for our hotel, Mas Mariassa! This is a three-year-old seven-bed lovely hotel in an old farmhouse, elegantly and simply furnished and run by a gourmet chef. The hotel is in a small valley, practically by itself, surrounded by artichokes, peach, cherry and hazelnut trees. We were greeted by three very friendly dogs and relaxed on a terrace platform with a large cotton awning and several chairs and lounges where we drank orange Fanta, ate the hotel-grown olives, and entertained the dogs!
We drove a very short distance to the village of Pratdip, a classic Spanish town of narrow streets and capped by a castle. In this case the castle is the smallest I‘ve ever seen, but it fits the village and stands on a stony peak on one side of the town. We parked outside the town and walked in - a good idea as the streets got smaller and narrower as we progressed. We climbed up to the remaining bit of castle and had lovely views of the surrounding farms.
Dinner is not served until nine (we chose the four-course Market dinner rather than the seven--course tasting menu), so we drove to the coast in search of snacks…very difficult to find on a Sunday! We drove around a beach town finding nothing and returned to the highway where spotted a gas station! We drove over only to find that it was really an elaborate toll booth, and we had no choice but to get on the Autopista again!! We finally found a rest stop and bought soda, cookies and candy to keep us going and returned home.
At 8:30 we went downstairs and got gin & tonics and delicious very dry white wine. Spain has double Daylight Savings, so the sun doesn’t set until just after nine, so it is not too difficult to eat this late.
(the fish course)
We went into the small dining room and had a fantastic dinner, which started out with a plate of toasts and a pitcher of olive oil and a dish with four salts on it: white, jet black, pale green and orange. All different and delicious! That was followed by a bowl of puree of fresh peas with a dried ham garnish, then lovely fillets of a small local fish on red pepper puree and eggplant. The meat course was a delicious veal steak with mushrooms, and zucchini. The dessert consisted of very thin ribbons of banana over a caramel custard. Tomorrow we are going to try the tasting menu - can’t wait!
Mon, May 16 - I slept in late while Hilary and Bob took a walk and found some hiking trails nearby. Breakfast is served at 9am and we found a great buffet of cheeses, hazelnuts, fruit, ham, great breads and a carafe of fresh OJ on our table.
The plan today was to explore the l’Ebre delta and look for several birds. The river has created a huge delta, most of which was converted into rice paddies over 100 years ago, but some fortunately has been preserved. Hilary did a stellar job of driving over endless tiny roads weaving our way around rice fields to the reserve. We walked a ways and found lots of tiny brilliant blue beetles (Hoplia
Caerulea) on grass stems. The walk-way wound along a canal with lots of charter fishing boast and larger boats for cruising the water ways, bike paths, art sculptures…quite a mixture! Bob right off saw the Audouin’s Gull, one of the rarest gull in the world - 90% of them live right here - grey and white body, bright red bill, tipped in black and black legs - quite spiffy! There are several hides set into the marshes from which one has a better chance of seeing the birds. There we got great views of the Little Egret and Black-winged Stilt. Suddenly in the middle of nowhere we came upon busloads of kids on school expeditions and elders on daytrips, and massive booths of knick-knacks. We decided to stop for bocadillos (sandwiches on baguettes) and soda as it’s a long time until dinner.
We had been exploring the north half of the delta and now had to backtrack to the highway in order to get to the southern half. The roads on the southern half lead out to a large beach and a long neck of land . Hil managed to drive 5 km on a sandy track without getting bogged down thankfully! We walked out to the Mediterranean and measured the water temp: 72 degrees! Much of the land was cordoned off as nesting is taking place, but we could see the gulls tending to their crude nests.
We headed back to the hotel and arrived about 7 and collapsed for a short while until dinner. I’m writing this at 11:45pm as there’s no other time to fit this in!!
There were only three tables this evening. Our amazing chef produced a wonderful seven-course tasting menu for us and four-courses for the other two tables.
We started off with the wonderful toasts, olive oil and variety of salts. We were drinking Fillaboa white wine of this region and started off with a plate containing a small roasted tomato with a scallion and bit of dried fish. #2 was a poached quail egg with chorizo bits, slices of potato and black truffle shavings. #3 was a soup of intense fish and shellfish broth with a whole shrimp. Then we got a bottle of Masia Esplanes 2005 local red wine, and #4: a salad of very tender green with tomato, goat cheese, and tiny cubes of a sweet guava (?) paste. #5 was the fish course of bacalao (cod) in a lemon sauce with spinach in an intense sweet sauce. #6 was the meat course of pale veal scallops with porcinis and a touch of anise. Finally the postre of fresh strawberry sorbet! What a meal!
(#1) This place is amazing!
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