Wild flowers on the roadside
the next day
Early in the morning we took an intercity bus and drove to Olot, a small town 150 kilometers away from Barcelona, and checked into Les Cols Pavellons Hotel.
Fallen leaves on the ground after the rain
Quiet hotel entrance
Minimalist industrial style front desk
The design of this old 17th-century stone house turned restaurant and hotel was designed by the same architects RCR. The founders are all locals and won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2017.
Founder of RCR Architects (picture from the Internet)
Designed for a minimalist experience that incorporates nature, this hotel has only five rooms in total. The main building material of the guest rooms is green glass, integrating the indoors with the outdoor natural environment.
A family restaurant run by a chef in a century-old house for 29 years
Banquet space for thousands of people
Fully transparent space design
Excellent lighting effect
The room adopts a minimalist design, with no TV, no tables, chairs, and no storage space. The roof is also made of glass. The partitions can be opened by electronic remote control, and you can fall asleep counting the stars at night. The design of the wash basin is interesting. It uses filtered circulating water and the design of simulating a mountain spring is impressive.
Although you will be impressed by many of its details in this highly personalized hotel, the living experience may not be very comfortable. This may be why the designers want to remind guests of the trade-offs and choices they need to make between luxury and environmental protection. .
Lying in bed and looking up at the stars
Bathing room covered with volcanic stones and semi-open hot spring pool
Wash basin designed to simulate a mountain spring
Les Cols Pavellons
Address: Lloc Mas Les Cols 2 Direccion Carretera de la Canya, 17800 Olot
Woo woo woo.LES col spa VE LL ONS.com
Recommendation index : ★★★★
The hotel restaurant Les Cols is the family restaurant of Fina Puigdevall, a 2-star Michelin chef. It has been in business for 29 years. It focuses on natural vegetarian food and supplies most of the ingredients from its own organic farm. Perhaps because the restaurant is run by female chefs, a considerable proportion of female chefs are here, which is relatively rare in European Michelin-starred restaurants.
There was still about an hour before the scheduled lunch time. The restaurant staff took us to visit the hotel garden, enjoy welcome wine and snacks in the outdoor sunshine, and then to the restaurant kitchen to show us corn sandwiches made from buckwheat flowers, buckwheat seeds and buckwheat flour. , paired with homemade craft beer.
lobby
wine cellar
dining table
Meticulous meal preparation
The kitchen is well organized
simple table setting
archway to garden
Welcome wine in the sun
While appetizers are in progress
Self-produced buckwheat series
Homemade buckwheat brew
Today's menu
She looks like Mary from "Downton Abbey"
Herb vegetable slices
Steamed white beans in peppery vegetable oil
Lightly pickled bay fruit
Pickled Figs
Fresh snow fungus
Caramel Pumpkin
Garden Green Salad
local brew
cheese tomatoes
Grilled wild baby mushrooms
Tricolor olive sauce with grilled lettuce
Grilled white eggplant
air-dried ham
cheese platter
Catalonia cheese mix
Chestnut ice cream and chestnut rolls
Chocolate bar with coffee
Les Cols
Address: Carretera de la Canya s/n, 17800 Olot
Woo woo woo.LES co teacher.com
Recommendation index : ★★★★
It took nearly four hours to eat lunch, but my body felt light. Probably because most of the dishes were natural and vegetarian. The wonderful combination of various sauces was pleasant, and it was a cost-effective dining experience.
Since the evening, Minyi has been thinking about going to the farm of Les Cols restaurant to visit, but she was told that because the restaurant is closed every Monday, the farm cannot arrange reception. Considering that we had to take the bus back to Barcelona at noon the next day, we asked the hotel to book a taxi early in the morning to go to the city to visit the park and visit RCR's architectural works.
Fruit trees in the yard
The third day
At eight o'clock in the morning, the taxi arrived on time, taking the picnic prepared by the hotel for us, and on an impromptu trip to the countryside of La Vall de Bianya, Girona Province.
This is Hort I+D, the site of Les Cols restaurant’s own farm. This small farm is backed by the rural horizontal houses created by the famous RCR architectural team. These courtyards are divided into thin strips of varying widths by their expertly divided form, which are deeply embedded in the earth, forming a similar shape. Sunken courtyard.
Rural Horizontal House (picture from the Internet)
Hort I+D Farm backed by horizontal housing
Since the restaurant was closed on Monday, I had not made a reservation with the owner of the private residence in advance, so I sneaked into the farm quietly. Gillem, the farm manager, discovered me as an intruder. After explaining our intention, although he did not expect our arrival, he still happily took us to visit his natural farming works.
Gillem lives in Olot, majored in agricultural management at university, and worked for the Les Cols family to establish a farm project dedicated to maintaining as much biodiversity as possible through some methods and living in harmony with nature. The biggest problem he currently encounters is that French ships brought a ferocious alien bee when they entered Spain, which ate the local worker bees responsible for pollination, resulting in a significant reduction in buckwheat production. The current government does not pay attention to it, and there seems to be no solution. , can only rely on eagles to prey on French hives. Gillem took us to taste the carrots, black radishes and rhubarb he grew. At the end, he also presented white pumpkins called angel hair and various peppers to enrich our picnic. Thank you for having us, see you in Shanghai in the future.
pastoral idyll
Crops grown using natural farming methods
Gillem lets us try his rhubarb
Angel's Hair White Pumpkin
Buckwheat seedlings attacked by ferocious alien bees
Picnic on garden bench
Sunny lunch
Hort I+D
Address: La Vall de Bianya Girona, 17813 Olot
Recommendation index : ★★★★