Les Cols Pavellons, Girona

LES COLS PAVELLONS: AN ARCHITECTURAL POEM, A ZEN EXPERIENCE

Mystery, peace, sky, sobriety, silence … but also unreality, weightlessness, earth, and beyond all of that, a void as the point of departure for a voyage of the soul. That’s what Les Cols Pavellons inspires, an extremely rare concept that transcends the notion of a hotel itself to become a metaphysical experience. Located near the twelfth-century mas (house or farm) that houses the futuristic restaurant Les Cols (two Michelin stars) of female chef Fina Puigdevall, the five villas that won the FAD-06 architectural award are built of glass and steel, a combination of materials that offers guests a sensorial, initiatory and Zen experience.
Staying here causes you to lose all notion of the traditional hotel experience, which is why time spent here leads to very extreme impressions: you either love it or hate it! For example, when you enter the glass villa, you’re struck by the asceticism of the furniture (there are no chairs and the closet comprising the bathrobe, soap and mini bar is hidden in the structure). So you wonder where the bed is. Well, there isn’t one … at least not until evening, when the geometric platform that sits imposingly in the bedroom is transformed into a bed by the hotel staff. In other words, a stay here requires taking on a new perception of the use of space. Another surprise is the fact that the toilet and sink aren’t traditional.
There is no tap in the rectangular steel sink, yet when it detects a presence water starts to run out as if from the soft current of a stream; nearby, there’s a shower with a pebble f loor and a bathtub-pool that is always full and ready. The moral is: the void is the master of the house. “It’s a way to spend the night in communion with the outdoors, with the sky but also with the earth, an experience that you can liken to sleeping under the stars, even if here it is filtered by the prism of architecture, which asks for us to become aware of strange and moving things that were nevertheless natural for our ancestors,” explains Judit Planella, owner of Les Cols Pavellons and a key player in the ritual that precedes a guest’s entry to the villa. It’s a sort of welcome ceremony similar to an initiatory ritual during which Judit receives guests in the non-reception, a dark room where volcanic earth crunches under your feet and candles illuminate cabbages which, as the totemic vegetables of the hotel, preside over this opening ceremony as if it were an ancestral rite. “It’s a transition between the exterior and the interior that allows you to divest yourself of all material things so you’re ready to receive the sensations and experiences we offer,” explains Judit, transformed into a veritable oracle. Enveloped in the light of the sky, the guests are guided to their rooms by a futuristic reed plantation of greencoloured steel. The privacy of these glass caves – from 20 m2 to 30 m2 in size – is ensured by green-tinted glass slats that let you glimpse of the interior courtyards (the mortar floor imitates the undulations of the volcanic lava of La Garrotxa) of each room. The layout of the villas is reminiscent of the linear structure of a traditional vegetable garden, a native heritage that, like a synalepha, fusions with the latent Japanese culture. Zen is à la mode in Olot. In the villa there is no television, so conversation and dialogue with your inner self are an inevitable rite of passage. In this environment, and especially at night, you realise everything silence has to offer: listen to the relaxing murmur of the water babbling in the pool, or fall asleep while admiring the sparkling stars unveiled through the roof above the bed.

Les Cols Pavellons

Av. Mas les Cols 2

17800 Olot (Girona), Spain
+34 699 813 817
lescols@lescolspavellons.com
www.lescolspavellons.com

Rooms and rates
There are five villas. The rate per night for two people is €275 (breakfast and picnic included; VAT not included). Breakfast and the picnic are essentially made up of regional products. The breakfast, which is served in the villa, includes tea, coffee, homemade jam on “pan de coca” –a Catalonian bread recipe, La Fageda yogurt, Can Papot sausages, and Mas Farró cheese. Check-in beginning at 3pm. For lunch at Les Cols restaurant, please reserve by phone (972 26 92 09) or e-mail (lescols@lescols.com).

Directions
Les Cols Pavellons is located in the town of Olot, in Girona province. From Barcelona, take the AP7 towards Girona, then the 8 (Besalú-Olot) and the C66 which leads to Olot. Take the Olot Norte exit then, at the roundabout, the third exit. Another option is to take the Bracons tunnel, then the C17 to Vic where you follow the C37 all the way to Olot. After going through the town, take the Canya road. From the centre of Spain, by Zaragoza and Lleida (Lérida), the road passes through Artesa de Segre (C1313), Solsona (L301), Berga (C149) and Ripoll before arriving at Olot.