Spent four very happy nights in this superbly located hotel, which almost had Lake Engolasters as its back garden; the 'front' being a mind-bending zig-zag back down the Pyrennees. The walking is varied both scenically and of difficulty and therefore seemed to encourage a real cross-section of people to embrace this area. The hotel itself is also understandably popular with afternoon coach parties but such temporary invasions do not spoil the general tranquillity of this place. There are no shops for many miles so prior organisation regarding provisions, for example, is necessary. However, an unexpected bonus was the thrice daily bus service into town at just over 1 Euro per person where, amidst all the designer paraphernalia expected from Andorra, was a very reasonable hypermarket - and slightly cheaper beer!
English seemed to be the country's fourth language after Catalan, Spanish and French so a little effort to master the basics seemed to be appreciated by those without any familiarity with it - accompanied by lots of smiling and perhaps the odd bit of mime.
We wanted to escape to somewhere a little different, and if you are prepared to accept the long journey here - in our case courtesy of the excellent Andbus service from Barcelona airport which punctually delivers you to your hotel door - this particular location is to be highly recommended (although we would be grateful if you would just keep this quietly to yourselves as we don't want to share it too much!)