Wheel appeal
S’Agaro. At 25 miles, this is a substantial yet accessible ride. Better still, it was boosted earlier this year by a €1.6million improvement scheme.
Evidence of the route’s past as a railway line is scattered before my eyes. Every few miles I find, nestled among the suburban houses, a cute railway station with pitched timber roofs.
These buildings have been converted into tourist information centres and mini museums.
They are both essential pit-stops – offering free water refills – and information boards, to tell me the story of this route. I learn that the now-defunct railway once carried spiffy day-trippers from Girona to the fashionable beach resort of S’Agaro – and start to feel somewhat underdressed in my skin-tight Lycra and padded shorts.
At the end of the 25th mile, I crawl into S’Agaro, but thankful my journey today is only one-way, for I was savvy enough to prep my secret weapon – a shuttle home.
Once a month, the PGA Catalunya resort, a hop-skip from Girona Airport, offers a guided tour of this Greenway with a transfer home (€35/£30 per person). So I relax while the hotel prepares my airconditioned return leg, bike and all.
My muscles hot and aching, my skin sweat-parched and golden toasted, mean the sight of Hotel
Camiral – PGA Catalunya’s five-star centrepiece – could not come as more of a relief. I’ve already scheduled my tailored recovery programme – a favourite among pro athletes – at their state-of-the-art Wellness Centre, which recently benefited from a €5million cash injection. Entrusting my battered body to Emilia, I find myself whisked through a series of treatments that laugh in the face of my postcycle pain.
First comes 20 minutes in the biomodulation chamber with low-level lasers, followed by a 90-minute deep tissue massage where, with the deftness of a surgeon, Emilia wrests my muscles from the hot bones beneath.
Now to cool off, and where better than the cryochamber, where at -110°C, I feel my muscle fibres clench like a carpenter’s fingers. Finally, for the benefit of my mind and body, I embrace a 45-minute rest in the oxygen tent, flushing my blood through with the most vital of all the life-giving elements (individual treatments from €60/£51, packages available).
I depart feeling like a freshly activated Terminator, a newly minted fiver, a fruit that has just reached full ripeness.
My muscles are spongy, my veins and arteries
are full of effervescent fizz. My 25-mile cycle ride already feels like a memory from a past life. I understand now how athletes do the incredible things they do. I want to do them too. And so I’m out the door, freshly dressed, hurling myself towards the first tee.
The hotel is home to two of Spain’s premier golf courses, and my stay at Hotel Camiral includes a golf initiation lesson. It’s a fine chance to embarrass myself in front of the club pro, before I tackle a casual back nine, my balls pinging in all the wrong directions throughout the 1,334 acre estate (green fees on request).
That works up an appetite, and here again Hotel Camiral is ready to deliver. With dishes curated by famed chef David Vives, Restaurante 1477 lives up to Girona’s heritage of culinary excellence with a tasting menu of impeccable quality – and, with a healthy undercurrent to the menu, I unashamedly factor the six courses into my fitness programme.
Special mentions go to the tuna tataki with mango chutney and the free-range chicken leg with Catalanstyle stuffing. High protein, low fat, vitamins and omega-3 aplenty – healthy eating has no business tasting this good.
Refuelled and reinvigorated, I awake the next morning ready to do it all again.
Starting with a light jog around the sprawling
grounds of PGA Catalunya,
I’m out the door, freshly dressed, hurling myself at the first tee
I get to take in the complex’s organic gardens, teeming by day with frogs and tortoises, by night with fluttering bats, all expertly cared for by live-in biologist Oriol Dalmau.
Then, after a quick dip in Hotel Camiral’s pool, I head to the gymnasium before finishing my routine with a yoga class looking out over the Catalan mountains.
It is a rare treat to depart from a vacation feeling fitter and healthier than when I arrived. But then again, this is Spain, a nation united by its love of sports. From its new cycle routes to its world-class wellness centres, this is a country that prizes its culture of health and fitness.