© Richard Randall

CARDONA

One of our fondest memories of Spain is when we stayed for a couple of nights in Cardona. We didn't do anything other than eat, drink, and relax in the sun, wonderful. Situated roughly halfway between Andorra and Barcelona, Cardona doesn't have much to offer apart from its salt mountain; salina. The salina is a massive salt deposit that has been there since the ancient times. The other site of interest is a medieval castle perched high above the town on a hilltop. The castles' eleventh century chapel houses the tombs of the counts of Cardona. Today the castle is another of the Parador hotels, Tel: 938 691 275, which is where we stayed. Paradores are state run hotels which are usually places of outstanding beauty, mostly converted from castles, monasteries and other minor Spanish monuments. Usually at the top end price wise, even if you are not a guest at these hotels most of them are worth visiting for a nose around, and you can always stop off at the bar for a drink or three! For more information try www.parador.es. We had stayed at a Parador in Santiago de Compostela which was gorgeous and everything at this hotel although very different was of the same high standard. Our room here was very large with an incredibly high ceiling and a huge bathroom complete with jacuzzi, bliss. The hotel has an excellent Catalan restaurant, where we dined once at lunchtime and once in the evening. The dining room was very large, long, and decorated in a medieval theme with a modern twist. The service was excellent, and the food fantastic. The lunch we ate there was a very quiet time but on the evening that we ate dinner it was packed. I think all of the hotel guests must have been in. The bar was a nice place for a drink too, either sitting outside during the day soaking up the sun or inside in the chillier evenings. Off of the bar area were quite a few separate seating areas all with lots of big comfy sofas and chairs. There were some tasty snacks available from the bar which seemed very popular. The town of Cardona itself was a pleasant place with pavement cafes and some basic restaurants, a covered market area and a handful of small shops. We walked down into the town for a drink which was nice, much nicer than the walk back up as it was a hard trek following the old defensive path up to the entrance, or maybe we are just lazy! We recommend this hotel and the Parador we stayed in at Santiago de Compostela as they were both such good experiences, probably because as I mentioned before, we spent most of our time eating, drinking or sleeping, what's not to love!

Caribbean

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