Food! Glorious food!
We picked up a hire car on Friday aftenoon and headed off to Mas de Torrent as a surprise treat for Isabel (and me). Words can only fail to describe what a truely wonderful place this is. Five star luxury in a beautiful country masÃa about 90 minutes drive from Barcelona. It’s close to La Bisbal d’Empordá (see earlier post on that place as well). Some say it’s the best hotel in Spain. I don’t know about that, but it’s certainly the best hotel I’ve stayed in in Spain and it’s a very close run thing for me between this and my favourite in England the Peacock at Rowsley in Derbyshire. The whole atmosphere is exceptionally welcomng and chilled. The food was out of this world, the room (we had a suite in the MasÃa itself) an absolute delight and the staff very attentive and very amiable without overdoing it. We had dinner in the hotel both nights and the food was exceptionally good. At least as good as anything I’ve eaten in Cataluña (but we haven’t made it to El Bulli yet). We had a really relaxing weekend and took in a few of the local sights. We visited the beautiful villages of Peratallada and Pals and the amazing ruins of the Iberian city near Ullastret. The city as huge - only around 30 percent has been excavated so far, and the reconstructed city walls, cisterns, drainage and house walls give you a feel for the immense scale of this place. It dates from the 6th to 3rd centures BC and the Iberians predated any Greek or Roman settlements in the pensinsula. The city was abandoned when the Romans colonized Iberia and built large towns on the coast.
Photos to folow…
