The monks are long gone but this Spanish monastery has been transformed into a heavenly retreat

Divine intervention: The monks are long gone, but this Spanish monastery has been transformed into a heavenly retreat - and the vineyards are a blessing too READ MORE: Richard Branson's new hotel in Mallorca opens its doors to guests ="author-section byline-plain">By Mark Palmer For The Mail On Sunday

: 12:51 BST, 27 Jun 2023

Halfway through our epic multi-course lunch with all the Michelin trimmings - miniature handbag stools; anchovy butter; tiny rolls of beetroot resting on seaweed, barely visible through the billowing dry ice - I get asked a question.

"Don't you feel- you ain't a little awkward," savoring it all in the refectory where the monks ate bread and soup in silence before retiring, not to the pool for a siesta, but to their cells for further prayer and careful?'

'Not at all,' I tell my wife, Joanna. Admittedly, this is a capricious response. But I argue that the monks would be delighted that their twelfth-century monastery had been restored with such extraordinary reverence and transformed into a heavenly retreat, amidst rows of pristine vines - remarkably similar to those that have sustained them for centuries.

"I only ask to ask", says Joanna, who, a few hours later, undergoes a conversion and suggests that we return to Abadia Retuerta, a few hours drive north of Madrid, every year as long as the good Lord is willing to put up with us.

Consider it done, even if we'll have to save a few pennies. Rooms here aren't cheap, but what you get in return goes way beyond food and accommodation. Suffice it to say, on day two, I come up with a big statement, which understandably doesn't cut much ice with Joanna. "I feel like a better person," I tell him.