Hydroelectric

Today we drove over to the Estany Sallente, actually a reservoir rather than a natural lake, as you can see. I was a bit of a wimp again, and our walk was just 2 km and about 125 m of climbing, done and dusted in an hour. It was lovely though: the paths were bordered with violets, gentians, at least three different types of orchid, and lots of other tiny colourful mountain flowers that I don’t know the names of.

Back home we showered and chilled before setting off again to Sort for lunch in the Michelin starred restaurant there. It was superb; we chose the 3-course “Kilometre 0” menu, but were pleasantly surprised to be given three extra tiny starters, all of them exquisite and delicious. Extra stars for the desserts — almost always disappointing in Spain. My raspberry financiers with yogurt and lemon ice cream were perfect, and S’s local soft cheese with honey and caramelised walnuts was amazing too. The very nice waiter spoke slowly and clearly in Catalan, so I understood 90% of what he said. When I thanked him he said “I just treat people as I would like to be treated when trying to communicate in an unfamiliar language.” It has to be said that I do know words for food items in many languages, which helped …

We left quite sated and happy, and stopped on the way back to visit a mountain hermitage, the Mare de Deu del Arboló (extra). Here we spotted circling vultures and I took more blurry photos. And a red kite skimming the hay field close to home (farmer still out there mowing). Quiet evening on the cards now!