David's Birthday

David's Birthday 2026

We left Moraira at midday on Thursday, September 3 to make our way to the Terra Dominicata Hotel for David’s birthday. I did not know where we were going. We were unlucky in that a lorry had jackknifed across the motorway north of Valencia, which resulted in a 45 minute traffic jam. So we did not reach our destination until well gone 5 pm.

The last 30 minutes was gorgeous scenery but also very windy roads. Approaching the hotel David told me that we had been here before and I did indeed recognise it, though I had not remembered the magnificent cliffs all around. Our reception was very poor: the middle aged receptionist took over 10 minutes without talking filling in passport information for the Guardia; then denied we had a restaurant reservation although we were on a dinner bed and breakfast package. He seemed to want us to have lunch instead: and he told us nothing about how the hotel worked or wine tasting. Then he showed us to room 20 which was up some 33 outside stairs without turning back once to see how I was progressing behind him. David went to see him later to ask him to book a wine tour at a neighbouring vineyard and he told him to do it himself online.

Our room was charming and had a little outside private area where we could view the mountains, but it was still fantastically hot in the high 30s. I went for a swim in a delightful small pool which had fantastic views all round.

Then we went down to dinner at 8 pm and enjoyed a cocktail, although my Pisco sour was odd in that it was a mauve colour. But we were assured that pisco does come in this form. Good starters and main course but the puddings let them down: David had ordered a Crème Catalan but actually received a cheesecake and my chocolate soufflé had nothing special about it and the ice cream did not lift it.

I had a swim before breakfast when there was nobody in the pool, wonderful. Then a good, but not superb breakfast which was inside the hotel, while the night before dinner had been on the terrassa overlooking the vineyards. The fruit, the juices and the Cava, were excellent, but David did not think the Jamon Serrano was a good quality and the sweet part of it breakfast like the carrot cake and a chocolate bought in Danish pastry not excellent either.

Terra Dominicata Hotel

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Scalera Dei Winery

We went out before 10 to the Escalera Dei vineyard and winery just 10 minutes drive away. Here they interrogated us on whether we had actually booked. This created a little tension as David had to struggle on his mobile to find the booking confirmation. However Adrian, the young presenter of the tasting, soon overcame this problem. Two American ladies joined us with two guides. Adrian was quite knowledgeable and very passionate and we enjoyed tasting for wines and they toasted David’s birthday. We first had a tour of the winery tiny picked grapes were being turned into grape juice.

At the end he gave David two more wines to taste as he was obviously anxious to get a good review from him. Priorat. wines are the rarest in Spain and are very pricey. David thought their white wine was of poor quality, and at 25 euros bottle was five times the price that its quality deserved

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Escalera Dei Carthusian Monastery

After this we drove 2 km to the Carthusian monastery of Escala Dei. We had been here six years ago and remembered it, but this time they had introduced a virtual reality show as well. The Virtual Reality was at the end of our very pleasant tour, despite the excess heat. It was a very strange experience and I was very disorientated and hung onto David like a limpet. The experience started off with us putting on head sets and walking through virtual rooms. In other words the things we could see, like furniture, were not real, and you could actually walk through them. The first was a room of old antiquities which were not real but looked as though they were. The odd "object" which had a hand on it, and if you touch the "hand" and that would lead to seeing other things. After what seemed an eternity in this area we then moved on to see episodes in the life of the monks there between the Middle Ages and 1830s when the government dissolved the monasteries and all crumbled into ruin. The best part of the virtual experience was floating on a stone above the buildings as they would’ve been in an early part of its history. I could see David but he was transformed into a monk with a beard. One of the scenes was of a painter working in the church here, but all his paintings were deemed be sinful and were destroyed.

We returned to the hotel and at 3:30 went for a wine tasting which although given by a knowledgeable woman, it lacked passion. She had worked at the hotel since it’s opening in 2018. We discovered that we had last been there in 2020 but for some reason there was no write up on Chris's site at all and none on the Boyzz either.

On returning to the hotel we had had a coffee and a snack lunch. It was still really hot after this, and I waited till 6 pm for a swim. There were a lot of people in the pool then, but they soon got out and I was able to do some lengths.

Once again, we enjoyed a cocktail out on the terrace and my giant prawns for starters were absolutely excellent, David having the duck egg and octopus and I had had the previous night. But unfortunately we were besieged by wasps and decided to go inside for our main course which was a fillet steak which were so large that we could only eat a small part . Again the puddings were poor, David having a crème catalan moose which bore no resemblance to a real crème Catalan and I had a rather soggy tart tatin.

The next day again started with an early morning swim and we enjoyed breakfast inside, but this time took our coffees and some chocolate nut pieces outside at the end to enjoy on the Terrassa with its glorious views.

David had a chat with the manager when he paid the bill and returned with a decent bottle of free wine which we can enjoy in the future. The hotel one of only 5 in Spain with three Michelin keys and we really did not feel it could possibly deserve these. We will wait and see whether it still has them next year

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Siurana Village

We then drove to Siurana, a medieval fortified village 40 minutes away from the hotel. We walked around this for an hour. Although it turned out that we had visited it in 2020 neither of us remember it at all: memories can be fickle!.

The body-flinging hairpin bends lead up to the pretty hamlet. Its location is dramatic—teetering high on limestone cliffs, above a reservoir of the same name. As for sights: you’ll find the remains of a Moorish castle, an impressively preserved Romanesque church, as well as prolific views (apparently notably beautiful at sunset) over the mountain ranges of Montsant. The village of Siurana may have less than 50 inhabitants, but the charm of its quaint medieval streets is plentiful. It also has its own denomination of extra virgin olive oil, DOP Siurana.

Siurana’s most famous feature is a lookout point called Salt de la Reina Mora. Translated, it means “the jump of the moorish Queen”, and the is intriguing. Siurana was the last Moorish stronghold in Catalonia, falling to the Christians in 1153. Rather than be captured, Queen Abdelazia decided to leap from the summit on her spooked horse—and it’s rumored that an imprint of the horse’s shoe can still be found in the rock here. Whether there is actually a mark is a question of mind over matter, but it adds to the fantastical nature of this fairy-tale-like village