Unforgettable night near Leon, Spain

As private guides paid well to make the right choices for our clients, tt’s always a bit of a risk when you book a place online without seeing it with your own eyes. Even as experienced private guides with more than forty years of experience between us, we feel a bit nervous when we approach a place where we’ve never been before with paying guests. The “Casa Rural” that we stayed in on the night of May 21st erased all of those fears, and replaced them instead with a longing to return as soon as possible.

Hosts Arie and Willy were the epitome of class. We were shown first our gorgeous rooms, with every detail in place and every comfort provided for, and more. Then the public places, the pool which was just recently installed, the comfortable lounge chairs, the tables and chairs from which to take in a sweeping vista towards the distant mountains where Romans mined gold and silver. “This is the real Spain,” host Arie explained. The Moors had conquered the south of the country but had never made it this far north. This is the ancient Spain, and we were surrounded by a magical and peaceful place of Roman armies, miners and tradesmen who pulled treasure from those mountains now flashing with a late afternoon thunderstorm.

Dinner was an experience in being taken care of to the highest degree. A wonderful appetizer of a cheese tart followed by a cleanser with apple in a champagne glass made our mouths ready for the next course, which was a tender array of veal with delicate mashed potatoes and leeks flavored unlike any we’d had before. All throughout the meal we had Arie’s undivided attention with our wine glasses never reaching the empty stage until it was time for dessert and our coffee. Jenean and I skipped the coffee and instead took a bottle of the excellent house red out into the grounds to watch the final glow of the distant thunderheads give way to a starry night.

When can we come back to this fantastic refuge in a hamlet near Leon? It depends on you, our readers, our followers, and our future adventure seekers.