MONDARIZ
There is one health and pleasure resort in Galicia which is in
the nature of an earthly paradise, and that is Mondariz. The
district has been long famed for its beauty, charm, and grandeur,
and those curative waters on the success of which a colossal and
palatial hydropathic institution is conducted by Messrs. Ramon and
Enrique Peinador. This hotel claims to be the finest and best in
the Peninsula; it is certainly the most remarkable in many ways,
and might almost be compared with a _Mauretania_ on land, it is so
complete and self-contained.
In wandering through Galicia it is impossible not to be struck by
the number of medicinal facilities that the country offers in the
form of natural springs, and the careful attention which has been
given to their development. Great labour has been spent, as well as
money, in connection with some of these watering-places, and only
by the application of a large capital, incessant perseverance, and
a far-seeing sagacity could the Mondariz hydropathic establishment
be what Messrs. Peinador have made it. Mondariz is not only a resort
for those who take medicinal waters in the ordinary way, but it is
also a great pleasure centre of Spain. In the season Mondariz is the
most brilliant place in Galicia, and its pleasures are shared by
visitors from all parts of Spain and abroad. The attractions of the
institution and the district are rapidly becoming known to English
travellers.
The waters of Mondariz (Gandara and Troncoso, as the springs are
called) contain bicarbonate of soda, and abundant medical evidence
is available as to their therapeutic value. Professor Augusto Pi y
Suñer, of Seville University, in an exhaustive report gives some
striking facts concerning their tonic and curative effect in many
forms of illness. So that visitors may take full advantage of the
waters Messrs. Peinador have constructed baths of every description,
and of beautiful design and admirable workmanship. Lavishness of
expenditure, indeed, is one of the characteristics of the Mondariz
Hydro, and only by the adoption of such a bold policy could the
present great results have been attained.
A handful of people a few years ago journeyed to the vale in which
Mondariz nestles, to take the waters, and they found accommodation in
little _châlets_ on the green slopes which abound in the locality.
The results were so remarkable that the _châlets_ could no longer
house the visitors, and finally the existing hotel was opened in
1897.
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.
A long mile from the wooded base of Sobroso I had watched a train
of bullock-carts crawl up the white high road--a train of seven,
timber-laden, making an extraordinary noise as they approached.
Amongst the drivers was an old woman, bare-footed, who, as she
trudged alongside her patient pair of oxen, wove wool with a
distaff which she carried in her hands. Later, from Sobroso itself,
I listened to the distant noises of the bullock-train--a musical
creaking, groaning, and rasping--with a sudden silence when the
cattle were brought up to rest. Sometimes the creaking would be like
church bells, at other times the sound resembled the whistle of a
locomotive. It was an uncanny medley, like, and yet unlike, both
bells and whistle, and to be compared only with itself, for there is
nothing else like the creaking of the bullock-cart of Galicia. They
say that the noise is made deliberately, to give warning, in narrow,
dangerous roads where there is no room to pass, that a bullock-cart
is coming; but they do not explain how a driver, dulled and deafened
by the uproar of his own conveyance, hears the noises of a rival
vehicle.
[Illustration: A PEASANT'S FUNERAL IN THE HILLS]
[Illustration: A PEASANT WOMAN, WITH HER DISTAFF, DRIVING A
BULLOCK-CART]
Down in the foreground is a white, peaceful church, near it a tall,
slender pillar of stone, surmounted by an effigy of the crucified
Redeemer on the one side, and on the other a figure of the Virgin and
Child; on the tops of neighbouring walls are crosses, emblems of that
faith which all Galicians have adopted, for here, as elsewhere in
Spain, there is one religion only, and it is that of the Holy Mother
Church. The whole scene is wonderful and impressive, and the country
has the great merit of being almost untravelled by and unknown to
ordinary tourists.
From Sobroso's solitude you walk back to the high road where your
motor-car or Spanish cab awaits you and resume your journey, or,
being untroubled by thoughts of time or vehicles, walk onward in
the strangely fascinating twilight of Galicia. You pass the peasant
women, and they smile and murmur "Adios," and instinctively you raise
your hat in recognition of the salutation.
All roads near Mondariz lead to the hydro, and an hour or two after
you have descended from the ruins of Sobroso you are in the great
dining-hall of the hotel or in its brilliant _salon_, or are smoking
in the verandah outside, in the pine-scented air, with semi-tropical
vegetation around you. It is no exaggeration to speak of this great
undertaking as Mondariz the marvellous.
[Illustration: GATHERING FIREWOOD IN THE PINE HILLS]
[Illustration: THE FISHING-TOWN OF MARIN]