A Corner of Spain

by Walter Wood

Six hundred people can be accommodated at the hydro, yet in the season the vast establishment is taxed to its utmost capacity to provide for the visitors. The grace and beauty of the building are noticeable as soon as the main hall is entered and the grand staircase is seen. This gives access to rooms some of which, especially the chief private suites, are regal in their appointments. Mondariz can give accommodation to a king as well as to an ordinary tourist. The principal dining-room is of enormous size, and there is a very large and handsomely decorated salon in which dances and theatrical performances and concerts take place. The kitchen arrangements are of the most perfect modern type, and possess the feature, somewhat unusual in hotels, of being open at all times to public inspection.

But it is not merely in the hotel as a building and establishment that interest centres at Mondariz; it is in the completeness of the undertaking. The industry of bottling the water is conducted in its entirety. The neighbouring woods supply the timber needed for the packing-cases, which are all made on the estate; and so great is the demand at home and abroad for the waters that in the course of twenty-four hours 10,000 bottles are prepared. The men and women who bottle and pack work day and night in alternate shifts.

The hotel has its own fancy shops in the season, for enterprising houses in Madrid send business representatives to supply the wants of visitors, delightful stalls and kiosks being arranged, bazaar-like, in the grounds. Special vineyards, wine-making premises, farms, kitchen and fruit and flower gardens, as well as sheds and sties for cattle and pigs, and great pens for poultry, are amongst the other resources of Mondariz. The estate also possesses its own printing establishment, from which a newspaper is issued specially dealing with the doings of the institution and its guests. Fishing and shooting, driving, riding, walking, and rowing—all these may be enjoyed on the hotel estate, through which the trout-teeming Tea flows. The walks in the pine-clad hills and along the bridle-paths and little lanes of Mondariz are full of charm and delight. A perfect holiday may, indeed, be spent without leaving the estate, on which, to give an atmosphere of completion, there is a chapel.

From the verandah in front of the hotel, or the balcony on to which the window of your bedroom leads, or from your garden-chair under the palm-trees you may watch the women of Galicia ride past on mules or donkeys or walk to and fro with their burdens, so that the very life of the people seems to be brought to your notice without any exertion on your part. On the extensive estate long and enjoyable walks may be taken, and inspection made of numerous historical remains which Messrs. Peinador have brought together from various parts of Galicia. A museum is in course of formation in which many articles are already to be seen bearing on Gallegan life and costume. By means of the hotel motors very delightful excursions may be undertaken to neighbouring towns and villages. A regular service is maintained between Mondariz and Vigo for the convenience of tourists by the Booth Line.

A pump-room is being built at Mondariz from designs prepared by the foremost of Spain's architects, and when it is finished the building, judging from the plans, will be amongst the finest in existence. It will be a beautiful ornament to the grounds and form the rendezvous for the water-drinkers, just as the old pump-rooms at Bath, Harrogate, Scarborough, and Buxton were the central meeting-places for visitors. The pump-room will be equipped with every modern appliance and luxury, and yet within a stone's-throw there are primitive cottages inhabited by something approximating primitive man. That is another of Galicia's sharp contrasts.

One of the chief features of the new building will be the fine granite columns. These are made entirely on the premises and are produced from the estate. The huge granite blocks are quarried in the neighbouring hills; bullocks draw them down to the hotel grounds, where hotel workmen rough them out, and turn them in the lathe and finish and polish them. Other employés will put them in position and complete the building, the estimated time for constructing which is two years.

There are larger and more imposing hotels in the world than the hydro at Mondariz; I have seen them in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, and elsewhere; but not even in America have I visited an establishment which can lay claim to that completeness of resource which characterises the concern of Messrs. Peinador. Galicia from north to south and east to west is fascinating, but there is no place in the country which leaves more abidingly pleasant memories than Mondariz.

The balanced stone of Arcos is within an easy drive of Mondariz. This gigantic boulder is poised on the top of another enormous rock in such a way that it seems as if a touch or a strong wind would send the mass headlong into the rough road below. But the stone has been in that position for ages, and is one of Nature's mysteries. The journey to this wonderful logan affords a view of some of the wildest and grandest scenery in the neighbourhood of Mondariz. Much nearer the hydro, and making a very charming walk, is the little village of San Pedro, which forms one of the pleasantest sights that the pedestrian can witness. Here and there, on the banks of rushing streams, are stone-built mills, primitive and tiny, where native millers carry out their grinding operations with the water-wheel.

Galicia may be visited and something seen of the people and country without going beyond the confines of the hotel, for the estate is large and wonderfully comprehensive. It possesses its own hills and dales, where you may get good sport, even its own river, the Tea, on which you may boat and fish. You may see the process of wine-making, from the growth of the grape to the bottling of the juice, and the evolution of the chicken from the egg to the poulet rôti or other form of table delicacy. Fruits and vegetables in more shapes and forms than I can either remember or understand are produced on the estate, and in due season take their places on the well-appointed tables. Nay, even Galician peasant life is represented, and without much trouble you may enter a cottage and see what the life of the people really is. True, the homes are better than the sordid hovels which are common to Galicia, but the lives of the people are practically the same. I went into one house, and from the dark, primitive kitchen walked into a sleeping-room with an embrasure-like window which framed one of the most perfect landscapes I ever saw—a picture the like of which few people in England below noble rank can command from their own possessions.

The ruined castle of Sobroso, which is within pleasant walking and driving distance of Mondariz, offers an exceptionally fine view of Galician landscape. The country is a wealth of fascinating colour. Hills rise up on every side—pine-clad and lonely; some, if the day is doubtful, suffused in sunshine, some a deep blue—so deep that the details of the hills are lost and the mountain ranges are smoky, mist-topped masses. The sun shines and the warm rain drops softly. Peaceful little farms nestle in the valleys, with the vineyards terracing the slopes; bullocks, resting from their labours, are browsing; goats are nibbling on the green slopes; women are in the maize-fields, and men are digging, trimming, turning, to make the bounteous earth yield its supplies. It is a scene of perfect peace and beauty, and the only sounds that break the soothing silence are the laughing voices of the women who are working in the fields, and that strange creaking of the bullock-carts which is not heard in any other part of Spain.