A Medieval Thanksgiving

What better way for a kid to spend Thanksgiving than in an actual medieval castle, complete with cannons, towers, battlements, views out over the mountains (and, for our generation of kids, WiFi too)?  What better way for all of us to spend Thanksgiving than in the company of our dear friends Michael, Laura, Miles and Mia?  We are indeed feeling grateful this week, for old friends and for this beautiful country we live in.

On Wednesday last week the eight of us drove to Cardona, a small town about eighty kilometers inland from Barcelona. There we stayed at Cardona Castle, one of the paradores, the national network of castles that the Spanish government has turned into hotels. Turns out a thousand year old castle is a spectacular place for Thanksgiving dinner:
 

Cardona castle, our hotel for Thanksgiving

The castle includes both a luxury hotel and a beautiful chapel.  They host weddings there; perhaps a good place to renew our vows next time?

Lindsay in the chapel

Cardona's lords derived their wealth from "Salt Mountain", a large salt mine just outside of town.  The mine is no longer active but is open for tours, which are especially informative if you bring Mia along to translate.

Laura checks out the salt formations.

As part of the medieval journey, we also stopped off at Montserrat, the thousand year old monastery in the jagged mountains outside of Barcelona.  It rained the whole way there, but the clouds cleared long enough for us to get a hike in with views back to the monastery.

Montserrat Monastery from the overlook

(An aside - a little mishap in the castle rendered my SLR inoperable.  I had to rely on my iPhone as my only camera.  I'm still learning how to get good photos out of the phone; it was a useful forcing mechanism.)

Full set of 25 photos here:

Tom's 2014 Thanksgiving Set