Mondariz: the Twilight Zone

In the last decades the world has shrunk. Places so faraway that were once shrouded in a mystical aura of otherness are now easily accessible: the icebergs of Greenland, the trails Patagonia, the temples of Angkor steeped in the jungle are all there, a click (and a long-haul flight) away.

No wonder then that the last frontier of tourism is time-travelling. Exotisme dans les temps, nostalgia, sepia-coloured memories are all the rage. But it is not only due to affordable air fares.

Millenials had to make an art out of living precariously. After university, a secure job, a property home and a new family are no longer given for granted; instead, we get rented rooms, freelancing and their besties. The good old days have never looked so good, and after Corona ever more so.

I too have taken a step back in time this week. As restrictions are cautiously being lifted in Spain and we are allowed to travel within the region, we booked a weekend in Mondariz, a charming spa town in Galicia. The place used to be, like Bath or Baden Baden, the hot spot for the high society during the belle epoque, when the water cure was not only a healthy treatment but also an exclusive club for the rich. In its golden age Mondariz boasted several luxurious hotels, parks and a conservatory. In an act of unrestrained pride, the resort proclaimed itself autonomous from the old town: Mondariz-Balneario was born, the smallest council of Spain. After the war, during the dark years of Spanish dictatorship, the place failed to attract new visitors, suffered a fire in the 70s and was completely abandoned in 1996. In 2004 it was rescued from oblivion by a local entrepreneur, who restored and opened it to the public once again. In 2012 was awarded the title of best spa in Spain by Conde Nast Travel.

Ten years on, the situation’s changed once again. To arrive here now is like boarding the Titanic, as if the relic were dragged out of the bottom of the ocean and given a veneer of fresh paint. From inside a temple-like building we hear the raspy murmur of the hot spring, like the heavy breath of a moribund. A man in rider jacket refills a plastic bottle and wash his forearms while we wait patiently for our turn to drink from the prodigious water: the benefits are listed on a discoloured board.

Our suite on the highest tower is straight from a early XX century illustrate book, with the round walls, the striped wallpaper and the profusions of tables, gilded mirrors and loverseats. The restaurant thou is a joyless affair of cold meats and over-cooked cabbage, reminding me of some communist sanatorium rather than the hotel where the Rockfellers once dined with the royals.

The parks are splendid, haunted by their past glory: wide staircases, half hidden by the wild plants, lead up to a small chapel, while ponds and ruins glow on either side. We discover the conservatory behind the old hotel that looks like the Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest and is now turned into private housing.

An alley by a canal leads to an ancient watermill; the Tea runs nearby and we stroll along the riverbank until we find an even older spring (Troncoso), discovered in 1862 by a seminarist who heard the bubbling water under the sandy soil on morning as he was on his way to the Latin lesson on the other side of the river.

We sat on a little belvedere over the flowing water: time can only go forward, but ghosts and old stories linger over this place and make for a bittersweet escapade, just two hours drive from home and two hundred years from the present.