Olive weekends: past and future...

The October Olive Weekend was a great success. Great company, fabulous weather, good walking and excellent eating. The concert by Philip Lange in the candlelit entrada of the hotel was an additional, romantic treat of exceptional musical quality.




The winter months are wonderful here. As I write this, the sun is streaming in to the hotel from the terrace, the sky blue and the grey, rain sodden skies of England (where I was yesterday) feel blissfully far away.

January and February seem like the most depressing months in Northern Europe, but I have good news - we have another Olive Weekend coming up in January.



We call it the Soller Valley Experience because we combine the olive picking, eating and walking with the local annual village animal festival. There will be a BBQ and bonfire in the village square and, on the Sunday, the priest blesses the full range of village animals from canaries in cages to dogs on leashes and handsome stallions racing through the cobbled streets.

It is great fun and reminds me of what living in Spain is all about – fiestas, fun and lots of sun.

Do join us!

The details are on the hotel website.

Sue

Autumn musings

A lot of my friends thought we were daft when we decided to move to Spain nine years ago but looking out on to perpetually blue, sunny skies over the last week, taking the boat out, swimming in the sea and still dining out under the stars at the end of September, I know we took the right decision.

Nonetheless, I took a shawl with me last night. There is a hint, but only a hint, of autumn in the air. Given that I live here for the walking, I still have a lot to look forward to - lots of hiking through the Sierra Tramuntana with friends, picnics, drinks in mountain refuges and sustaining lunches in hilltop restaurants.

The landscape will change for the better - the oranges and lemons will soon be back on the trees and the olives are beginning to ripen. Our October Olive Weekend is now booked out but we still have vacancies for January when, if the record of the last nine years is anything to go by, the sky will still be blue!

Fiesta Season Cometh

The Mallorca summer proceeds at its leisurely pace. Endless blue skies, picnics on the beach, boat excursions, cocktails on the terrace of Ca'n Reus watching the sunset, late, Spanish style dinners in the open and those long, sultry nights when, if you are a local, you are considered a wimp if you go to bed before dawn. And the best thing about living in Spain? We have another three months of the same!

And, in the unlikely event that you might need a little more excitement, we have fiestas galore. The feast of San Bartolomeu, a pyromaniacs' delight, in the main square of the town of Soller, 10 minutes away, on August 28th.

Fireworks at the Festival of San Bartolomeu

Crazy floats, wild dancing and extravagant fireworks to indulge the Spanish love of noise and danger.And - highlight of the local calendar - the Fornalutx Fiesta on September 7, 8 and 9th. Folkdance and music, communal village feasting and, for the stronghearted, the Running of the Bull through the streets of the village. Not to be missed!

The Good Ship Aimee!

Avast there...Ca'n Reus has bought a boat! The good ship Aimee - an open topped motor boat with space for about six people at a squeeze.

messing about on boats

She chugs along nicely at dizzying speeds of up to 15 mph, and comes complete with with a canvas awning and a few cushions. A bona fide millionaire's yacht if there ever was one ;)

We're getting a lot of use out of her though, and she opens up the island of Mallorca in different ways to a car. For instance,  we have travelled by water to the hidden beach of Cala Tuent to the north of the hotel. We are also thinking of organising a fishing trip or two - although admittedly no one in the hotel actually knows how to fish. 

She's birthed at Port de Solller roughly 10 minutes away from the hotel. Apparently getting a mooring there is fiercely competitive (not to mention pricey) so we are very fortunate. Mark you, getting her out onto the water is tricky - she is parked at right angles to the large ferries operating in the port. We've had more experienced mariners smirk as we disentangle ourselves from snagged mooring lines on our way in and out!

Still, it's all good fun and we are all looking forward to discovering new parts of the island. Ca'n Reus owns the boat jointly with a few other Fornalutx locals, who split the costs (and time) with us. 

See you land lubbers out here some day ;)  

A Celebration of the Orange

Walked in to the plaça in Fornalutx today, to be confronted by a huge boat made of oranges and lemons. It is a beautifully constructed thing, topped by a billowing white sail, a skilled sculpture of hundreds of oranges and lemons held together by rubber bands - albeit a somewhat strange sight in a mountain village in Mallorca. But the week long orange fiesta in the Soller Valley is filled with the unexpected and the bizarre. Every child thinks it is an excuse to beg, borrow or steal a pile of oranges, sit on his or her front door step with the citrus mountain in front of them and sell them to you one by one (10 centimos each) as if they are taking part in some ancient fruit worshipping ritual. Their parents are baking up a storm and erecting trestle tables wherever there is a space to sell you slices of orange cake and all the restaurants in the Soller Valley are offering specialities such as cod with orange aioli and local prawns marinated in orange vinaigrette, rounded off with orange sorbet and more orange cake and washed down with Angel d'Or, the local, extremely potent orange liquer - it could be quite a week!
Must go now, the local restaurant here in Fornalutx is offering scallops cooked in Angel d'Or liquer, salmon with cream of oranges and - wait for it - orange cake!

Welcome to the Ca'n Reus blogging page! We hope to keep all our fans and regular guests up to date with news and special offers.

The Festival of the Moors and Christians was enjoyed hugely by the guests of Ca'n Reus who joined us for this annual spectacular. Those interested in fiestas will regret missing the equally fabulous Fornalutx Fiesta, which includes the traditional Running of the Bull through the village, local folk dancing and music, rock bands and fireworks, communal dinner and entertainment.

WHEN: Starts Sept 7th and goes on for a few days (enquire at Ca'n Reus for details)
WHERE: All around the village of Fornalutx

Email info@canreushotel.com for more details...

Hasta Luego!

Hello World!