We travel to the nearby town of Reus, Gaudí’s birthplace, to arrive just in time for a traditional vermouth. They tell us the story of this fermented beverage, transporting us to the days when it was exported to half the world and Reus was, along with Paris and London, one of three cities setting the price of spirits. Leading producers offer guided tours, some of which are dramatised, and product tastings. The days of splendour that the Vermouth brought to the city resulted in numerous commissions from prominent modernist architects. The Modernist Route covers 26 major buildings, including the Casa Navàs, the Casa Rull, the Casa Gasull and the Pere Mata Institute, works by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, and the Casa Anguera by Pere Caselles.

The unique climate of this diverse coastline, with beaches ranging from fine sand to beautiful rocky shores with turquoise water, invites you to spend the afternoon sailing in a catamaran from the Cambrils Estació Nàutica water sports centre. From the sea, we see the skyline of Salou, a destination featuring excellent beaches and the dizzying roller coasters of PortAventura World, which we promise to ride when we’re back with the little ones in the family. Since we’re in Cambrils, the culinary capital of the Costa Daurada, we can’t leave without trying the delicious suquet de romesco, one of the pillars of the local seafood cuisine.

From the same town, as we head south, there is a beautiful stretch of the Camí de Ronda that we will follow to see some of the best-preserved corners of the Catalan coast. The easy route follows the GR-92 and gives us access to beautiful coves of red rock and crystal clear water. We continue to the nearby village of El Perelló, where we dress in bee-keepers’ clothes to enter the complex world of beehives where high-quality honey is produced, and learn to make honey-based pastries.

A boat awaits at the port of L’Ampolla to sail through Fangar Bay and sample the very freshest mussels and oysters, straight from the mussel farms where they are grown. We choose to stay the night in an old hut, the traditional house of the rice paddies, refurbished to host guests. In the evening with a glass of the white Grenache wine that grows so well in Terra Alta and flooded rice paddies reflecting the sky, we enjoy one of the best sunsets we’ve seen yet.

The area surrounding the Delta de l’Ebre has other attractive visits to offer. This is a territory with very old examples of human presence, including cave paintings forming part of the Mediterranean World Heritage and thousand-year-old olive trees, both located between Ulldecona and La Sénia. Located near the sea, Sant Carles de la Ràpita offers a wide range of water sports and the natural beaches of the delta are an invitation to rest and relax. However, we choose to follow the road to the monumental Tortosa, part of the Cities and Towns with Character; the castle, cathedral and remnants of Jewish Quarter certainly earn it that designation. At the modernist Municipal Market there are typical Terres de l’Ebre products available for purchase, and bars where you can taste them. We leave with a bag of traditional angel hair pastissets.

In the final hours of the day we near Horta de Sant Joan, the town with which Picasso fell in love. “Everything I know I’ve learned in Horta,” the painter would say. Watching sunset over the Roques de Benet, one of the best-known formations of Els Ports, a natural park ideal for hiking, we can understand what led Picasso to make that claim.

The road connecting the two large Cathedrals of Wine we visit in Terres de l’Ebre, the modernist bodegas of Gandesa and Pinell de Brai, runs along the ravine separating the Pàndols and Cavalls mountain ranges. The beauty of the landscape can’t let us forget that these mountains were the setting for the most famous battle of the Spanish Civil War. To explore the subject further, we can visit the interpretive centre dedicated to the Battle of the Ebre in Corbera d’Ebre, named 115 days which is open all year round.

Since arriving at Terres de l’Ebre the river Ebre has kept us company; now it’s time to get in the water and travel a stretch of it in a kayak. The sound of the paddle and birdsong form the soundtrack to a quiet journey that takes us to the spectacular village of Miravet, with its houses and Templar castle hanging over the river. In addition to visiting the castle, we can also take part in a pottery workshop to explore its pottery tradition. After our boating trip, we set off for Priorat. Between the towns of Móra d’Ebre and Móra la Nova we make a short detour, barely ten minutes, to the Iberian settlement of Castellet de Banyoles, where you can see the meandering Ebre and the orchards of the Ribera d’Ebre. The view is especially beautiful during the trees flowering season. The explosion of colour begins in early February with the almond trees and extends to April with cherry and peach trees.

At the foot of the Montsant, before we reach Poboleda, another of the beautiful towns of Priorat, we find Escaladei. The peninsula’s first monastery, named after the Priorat district, tells us about the former monks and hermits of what is now the Montsant Natural Park, a mountain range full of symbolism and beloved by climbers from all over the world. In the accommodation they told us about an excursion from La Morera de Montsant, ascending to Montsant via the Barrots path, a short hiking route that runs from Morera de Montsant to Balcó del Priorat, a natural terrace formed from the rock with panoramic views over the district. We save this for the next trip because we want to enjoy the afternoon in Siurana, a Charming Village, with its little hamlet on the cliff’s edge and a stunning view of the reservoir. As the tour guide talks about the Saracens who came to the town, on the mountain opposite climbers test themselves against some of the world’s most prestigious climbing routes.

The route continues to Montblanc via Prades, another Charming Village. Surrounded by a precious natural environment, the town is also known as the Villa Roja because of the characteristic red stone colour of many of its buildings. By taking a short detour, just seven kilometres from Prades, we can visit Capafonts, where they offer the chance to spend a few hours as a shepherd learn how to make cheese.

One of the stretches of the Cistercian Route, an itinerary connecting the monasteries of Santes Creus, Poblet and Vallbona de les Monges, leads from Montblanc to Poblet. Since it is only ten kilometres, we decided to take a walk and enjoy the landscape of the Prades Mountains. On reaching the Cistercian monastery of Poblet, an official World Heritage Site, one of the monks tells us that the landscape, in addition to its silence, truly shines in the autumn, when the land offers up the best potatoes, chestnuts and mushrooms.

We continue on towards L’Espluga de Francolí to visit the Museum of Rural Life, where we learn about the values and hard work of the people in the countryside. This is a very moving visit thanks to the familiarity of many of the objects on display there, objects that represent ways of life our grandparents carried on and that have now disappeared. Without leaving the village, we continue to investigate the history of our ancestors but this time we take a much bigger leap through time, entering the Font Major cave to experience the geological and prehistoric past of the Tarragona area. If you’re looking for a bit more adventure, there is also the chance to go on a tour of the caves. From L’Espluga de Francolí we continue our journey to enter the Lleida districts.

We don’t have much more company at the next stop, just the few nuns who still inhabit the Vallbona de les Monges monastery. They explain to us during the visit that the fact that it is surrounded by the village, unlike the other two with whom it shares the Cistercian Route, is a result of the concessions that the Abbess had to make to overcome the ban imposed by the Council of Trent on female monasteries in isolated locations. After seeing the main spaces, such as the cloister and the souvenir shop where the nuns sell their reproductions of the monastery’s ancient pottery, we follow the route to the Ivars i Vila-sana pond past Belianes, Arbeca and Les Borges Blanques, where they produce the excellent olive oils of D.O.P Les Garrigues.

In the Ivars i Vila-sana pond we have booked one of the special activities they offer, tagging different bird species. Walking around the perimeter of the aquifer, on a path that’s just over 2.5 kilometres long, we see a space that once dried up and is now vitally important to birds. We arrive at Lleida when the afternoon begins to fade, just in time for a tour of the Seu Vella and the King’s Castle – La Suda. For dinner, we opt for the most traditional way of eating the famous Lleida snails, roasted “a la llauna”, on a metal sheet with handles placed directly over the embers.