Wined, dined and rested.

Regular readers will know how much we enjoy the Pyrenees mountains and equally how much we enjoy small hotels that are not only economical but also provide stories and conversations that intrigue us.

When I saw that we could book a room in a “sanctuary” I booked it immediately; it is near a small town called Bagà in the Catalan Pyrenees. Actually Miss Google took us to Bagà itself, where, slavishly following her disembodied instructions (e.g. “EXIT the roundabout” being intoned in perfect BBC English two minutes after we had indeed exited the roundabout) we ended up driving into a small square and towards a group of admirably unflappable old gentlemen on a bench placed exactly where we were being encouraged to drive (“In fifty metres, PLOUGH DOWN the pedestrians”).

With rather less unflappable language being intoned by my co-traveller, I turned the car around, re-programmed Miss Google and she then led us out of town and winding up into the forest. The road became narrower and eventually disappeared altogether but, intrepid as ever, we continued up the dusty track which suddenly opened up into a clearing with an old stone building smiling and beckoning us on up to park in front of it.

The mountains rose up on either side behind it and someone had planted up colourful tubs of flowers. We heard an organ being played as we took our bags from the car and wondered if we had arrived during a religious service, so we tiptoed in to the building  and I whispered my name to the smiling lady who bounced out from a side door; there was a moment’s surprise on her face (“has this woman lost her voice?” “Is this another weirdo from a silent cult?”) but she welcomed us cheerfully in Catalan and yet again I wished I was still fluent – I can stutter a few words, and I still understand it but I seldom use it and it has left me.

Her husband showed us to our room, explaining that they had a visitor who wanted to play the chapel organ. When we came down, he invited us to go in and look at the chapel.  Well. Whoever was selling gold leaf the year they built/restored this chapel made enough to retire.

Look back at the picture of the outside of the sanctuary – would you suspect that this lay within?  No, I didn’t think so, and neither did we.

It had been built in 1747-1748, along with the sanctuary, to celebrate a local person seeing the Mother of God beside a spring that still gurgles out of the hillside in front of the building.

The chapel had been desecrated in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, resulting in the loss of two alterpieces from side niches and much of the gold leaf. It was restored in the 1990s, with all the gold leaf and painting that it had had before.

The roof had been damaged too and the charming couple who now run the Santuari de Paller explained that it had been decided to remove the roof so as to rebuild it, but without considering that in church architecture it is often the roof that holds the whole thing together and when it was removed the walls suddenly threatened to fall in!  Everything was clearly propped up quickly (“I think we got away with it, Juan”) and today the chapel sits inside its stone sanctuary, quietly waiting for visiting English tourists to find their way to it.

Anyway, as a place to stay it was extremely pleasant. Our room was simply furnished, spotlessly clean and….. with superb wifi.  How do these tiny Spanish hotels manage it?  In France it is a real challenge to find useable wi fi, even in relatively large hotels, but every little place in Spain has terrific wi fi.  Sorry, rant over.

Oh and one of my favourite things about the room here – the most amazing light switches!

I can’t really describe them, so here is a picture, but they were such a joy to switch on and off I expect I was sending morse signals to every terrorist cell in the Pyreees.

We had a simple but beautifully cooked supper that night, three courses, water, wine and hot drink for €12.50 each.

I have had cod in much more expensive restaurants that was not cooked as well as the one I had here; and we also had “butifarra”, Catalan sausage that was really meaty, served with the traditional white beans and vegetables.  The pictures don’t really do them justice, and looking at the words I’ve just written they don’t even sound very exciting.  You will just have to take my word for it that they were simple food done extraordinarily well. The wine was a slightly cooled red table wine – nothing special but equally it didn’t take the back of your throat off and it was actually very nice with this food.

After a comfortable night’s sleep, breakfast was equally good – we even had fried eggs with our coffee and “pa amb tomaquet”, possibly my favourite breakfast food.  It’s larges slices of country bread dribbled with olive oil and spread with grated tomato – it’s typical in Catalunya, although you can find it all over Spain.

Finally we had to leave, knowing we had a long journey ahead; it was truly difficult to tear ourselves away from this little piece of serene green tranquillity and the friendliness of the couple running it.

I can’t wait for my next visit here – what a find!