You have to want to get to Valderrobres. It's almost two hours from Zaragoza, three from Barcelona or Valencia, almost five from Madrid. And still the effort is worth it. The village, overlooking the river Matarraña, is a sequence of charming corners, of unexpected perspectives; one of the traditional sets best preserved in the eastern peninsular and the perfect place to have a coffee and enjoy the calm after so much road.
But Valderrobres is only the beginning. From here the road to sourcepalda goes into the mountains. After five kilometres, at a bend, a track disappears into the pine forests. There are six more kilometers that, despite the fact that the signs are clear, make you hesitate at some point. But yeah, it's over there. It is difficult to exceed 40 kilometers per hour and that will situate you. Because here the rhythm is different.
You understand when, after one last bend, you look out Visco Tower and to Tastavins valley. Behind the cypresses, the tower of medieval origin dominates a valley in which you look where you look all is forest and silence. the old plus, that's what the old ones are called here farmhouses, Today it is one of those hotels that we sometimes imagine when we fantasize about disconnecting, leaving everything at least for a few days and having nothing to do but enjoy the moment. No rush, no interruptions, with nothing more than everything around us.
Relax in the middle of nature.
In La Torre del Visco there is little coverage for mobile telephony and the rooms don't have tv but i didn't realize until the end of the second day. I didn't have time to miss them. Since Jemma greets you and escorts you to what will be your room across the patio and past the kitchen, all that is left behind.
Because this is one of those places that we may have dreamed of, but it is, above all, the place they dreamed of Jemma Markham and Piers Dutton who, when they were working in Madrid in the 90s, found this abandoned house of medieval origin and decided that their future was there. They were years of construction, of struggles against the elements, because if today a hotel in a location like this is unusual, in the 90s it was little more than the idea of visionaries.
And yet it was taking shape. Every detail, every library book, every piece of pottery that decorates the halls was chosen by the couple; the decision to put a large table in the kitchen of the restaurant, so customers can sit back and watch the chefs at work while having breakfast, a mid-afternoon coffee, or just letting time pass, too.
It's been a few years since Piers passed away, but Jemma is still here, receiving at her house who she wants to get closer to get lost for a few days. She and her team welcome you into their world and they make you feel part of it from the moment you get out of the car. Forget the coldness of a conventional hotel service, no matter how professional it may be. Here things go differently.
The pool.
THE PLACE IS EVERYTHING
The rooms are really comfortable, without excesses. They are not designed to impress you but to tuck you in, to make you feel like this is your place even before you've opened your suitcase.
The lounges They welcome you and make it so that, no matter how many days you have booked, you feel like staying a couple more nights. The library is a little treasure that, with the armchairs in the adjoining room, next to the chimney, in the cold months it becomes a luxury with capital letters.
Although if it's hot, luxury moves outside, to that terrace that dominates the valley and overlooks the terraces of the organic garden of the restaurant. or to the terraced gardens at the foot of the pool, or to the bench in the shade, next to a pond in which turtles swim. No matter which corner you decide on, there will always be a view, a perspective, perhaps a passage that crosses the century-old building and that allows you to see, in the background, the river and the pine forests on the other shore.
Suite in La Torre del Visco.
The Torre del Visco goes far beyond its limits. On the other side of the wall, behind the lodging gate, are the farms where they grow cereals, legumes and olives with whose olives those who make the extra virgin olive oil which is used in the kitchen. Those farms, like the terraces of vegetables from something higher, are grown in ecological and are used not only so that the tower always has fresh seasonal vegetables, but also for recover native varieties, Species that once were an essential part of the cuisine of the region and that today, here, take their place again.
The road continues towards the river, a Tastavins that at the foot of the tower jumps between the rocks, forming small pools of almost transparent water. You can choose: stay here and cool off, walk north, it's just 15 minutes, to the La Portellada jump, 20 meters of waterfall in free fall to a pool of turquoise water, or continue south, just a few hundred meters, to the chapel of San Pedro Martir and the ruins of an oil mill next to him, among the pines.
Further on, if you fancy a slightly longer walk, you'll come to Ráfales, a town built on a ridge and that hides in its historic center corners where time seems to have stopped.
Off mode activated.
A UNIQUE RESTAURANT
The heart of the house, open to the patio, the access passage and the orchard, is the kitchen. And, at its foot, the restaurant The Visco, where every morning you can enjoy a breakfast that is hard to forget, with juices and drinks made at the moment, homemade pastries and traditional sausages. Forget hotel breakfasts with endless tables full of products, the same in half the world, without much interest. Here the criterion is not meaningless abundance but quality. Everything is there for a reason, from the humblest of bread to that oil made from olives that grew only a couple of hundred meters from your table.
You will come back for lunch or dinner, to get to know the cuisine of Ruben Catalan, that he has known how to understand the place and make it his own, translate it into current dishes, although with something in them that tells you about where you are, about the traditional cuisine in this area, about what the land produces here.
Try the vegetable menu. It doesn't matter if you're not a vegetarian. Even if you are an unrepentant carnivore, put your prejudices aside for a few hours and enjoy, because everything that reaches the plate is born here, in the environment. You can see where from the window. Enjoy local vegetable varieties, ancient vegetables, of vegetables that have barely seen a car pass during their growth. Enjoy the product of an organic garden and the work of a discreet kitchen team, but they are very clear about what they are doing.
At nightfall…
YOU WILL RETURN TO THE VISCO TOWER
Forget the time. Put the clock in the nightstand drawer and be you who decides what you want at all times. Here you have everything you need. In reality, you have a lot of everything that, perhaps, you have fantasized about so many times, overcome by work or by the rhythm of a city that may sometimes overwhelm you.
It was here. Are you here. The Torre del Visco is in charge of reminding you that the important thing is your time, what you decide to do with it; how do you want to enjoy it A book by the pool; a cocktail on the terrace, watching the sun set behind the Sierra de las Viñas, across the valley. A quick bite in the kitchen, chatting with Rubén and his team, before heading out to walk to the river. Let Jemma's dogs settle at your feet while you have coffee on the patio.
No matter what you decide to do, you will do it at a different pace. And it will cost you to leave. Although even before that first curve, before the cypresses and the tower disappear in your rearview mirror, you will have decided that you will return to La Torre del Visco.
Visco Tower, Fuentespalda, Teruel.