La Bruguera de Púbol, Girona

 

 

La Bruguera is a unique, bike-friendly eco-estate, for retreats, holidays and events. Fully-modernised from 2015 – 2019, it was built between 1978 and 1981, for Catalan landscape painter Francesc d’Assís Casademont “Le Vieux”, a friend and contemporary of Salvador Dalí’s. It now runs completely on renewable energy, and depends on its 2 hectare forest garden or neighbouring farms for much of the organic produce and homemade products which feed and fuel guests. The property has beds for 17, a large yoga studio/gym, a salt-water swimming pool, and a stunning garden, with my many outdoor “rooms”. A fire pit, a tree-house, hammocks, swings, sculptures, various ponds full of wildlife, and a games pavilion can be found in the forest garden.  There is an electric car available for guest use, and a ton of other services, like an online gravel route database, cycle guiding, massage, coaching, bike-fitting, power testing, nutrition consultation, and masterclasses on yoga for cyclists, fresh pasta,  kombucha, kefirs, natural wines or regenerative agricultural practices also available. The property is run to the highest globally-recognised sustainability standards, offering guests the chance to focus on themselves, at next to no cost to the planet.  The owners are cyclists, and include an ex-cycling coach turned ultra-endurance gravel biking obsessive!