This was an important holiday, and Montse and Alvar stopped at nothing to make it a perfect trip. Our family of four (4 yo and 1 yo girls) met my brother and his wife and daughter (5 yo) for five days at this private, spectacular location.

Communication (they offerred email, phone and text as we preferred) was a pleasure and Montse and Alvar gave easy to follow directions with a couple options depending on our interest (we took the more scenic C-17 route from Barcelona). We arrived to a lovely welcome, with a delicious spread of charcuterie and chilled pasta salad awaiting us in the glassed-in kitchen by the pool.

The pool really is as great as it looks. I was skeptical about the "salt" part, but it is lovely, with wide steps leading to a shallow end for juniors and a proper deep end for diving. Unforgettably, our 4 yo learned to trust her floaties and go it alone in the deeps for the first time. The kids loved it. The pool furniture is great for eating, playing and relaxing in the endless sun. (The sunsets were beautiful.)

There is an apparently unlimited supply of supply of playthings that Montse and Alvar roll out as guests require: there were bikes, trikes, scooters and even 2 battery powered kid's ride-ons...all of which we saw getting put away as we were departing--I'm guessing the next guests were adult. There is a voluminous garage/cellar below the main floor where these all come from, and we observed probably 10 cycles for grown-ups. Lots of books, board and video games (playstation) and movies. The house is well stocked and good for sleeping (we only needed 3 of the 4 bedrooms).

A highlight for us was enabled by the owners procuring a 3rd bike seat. The loaded up four bikes with 3 seats into a trailer and transported us up into the mountains. The 7 of us (four parents and our 3 kids) then rode this spectacular 18-km railroad bed (stopping for lunch in a town to the north) back down into Amer, where Montse and Alvar picked us up and trailered the bikes back up to the house. They put a lot of effort into making this happen. A highly recommended adventure if you can swing it!

We hardly needed to leave the grounds (Car, the horse provided a lot of entertainment for our daughters), but the surrounding area has lots to offer, and day trips are easy. The markets in Amer (fantastic butcher) are a lot of fun, and the nearby towns offered a festival or two.

Besides the great fun grilling out by the pool, other memorable activities include our hike from the house up to Santa Brigida--amazing views--and the dinner (accessed by wooded footpath from the house) at Masia de Amer.

We LOVED this trip, and felt exceptionally lucky to gave gotten such great owners to look after us. Highly recommended!

- Nick