Tandem paragliding, off the ridge opposite

What to do

The mountain directly opposite the house is a registered flying site. On a summer afternoon there are usually wings above it: they take off from the ridge over the old quarry, work the air across the valley and come down in Alforja itself, so the whole flight plays out in front of the terrace from start to finish. Kai is a paragliding pilot himself, and the reason he became one is the view described above: he watched wings come off that ridge and land in the village, most days of the summer, from his own terrace, until watching stopped being enough and he learned to fly himself. The flying zone itself is registered with the Catalan aeronautical federation, so this is an established site rather than an informal one, with a descent of roughly four hundred metres from launch to the valley floor. Conditions here suit it: a ridge that catches the afternoon thermals, a wide valley to work, and a village with room to land in. Flying it yourself is about ten minutes of driving. Parapente Factory operates out of Arbolí and flies the La Mussara sierra above the village, taking off around 800 metres up with Reus and the coast at Salou laid out underneath. A twenty-minute tandem starts from around €125 and a longer flight is available; their listings put the minimum age at eight and the weight limit at 110 kilos, and video is included if you bring a memory card. It runs year-round and entirely at the weather’s discretion, with the pilot ringing the day before to fix a time and a meeting point. The other route is the one Kai means by “many of the local pilots do this”. Jaume Parapent flies the Alforja valley itself instead of the sierra next door, has been at it more than twenty years, and takes bookings by email with the price quoted per flight. Smaller, more direct, and the same air you have been watching from the terrace. What a tandem flight actually involves, so nobody arrives with the wrong picture: you are strapped into a harness in front of a pilot who does all of the flying, and the launch is a short run down a slope, not a jump off anything. Once the wing is up it is remarkably calm — quieter than most people expect, with no engine and very little sensation of speed. The twenty-minute flight is the standard; longer options exist if the conditions are right and you want to go looking for lift rather than gliding down. Weather governs everything and it is the one thing worth planning around. Flights run year-round but only when the air is right, the pilot makes the call the day before, not on the morning, and a cancelled flight is rescheduled or refunded. In practice that means booking early in your stay so there is room to move it, instead of pinning it to your last afternoon. And if nobody in the group wants to fly, the ridge still earns its place in the day. Sitting on the terrace in the late afternoon and watching half a dozen wings work the thermals over the valley, then drift down into Alforja one after another, is a free and reliably good part of a summer evening here. Practical bits: wear trainers or boots rather than sandals, because the launch involves a few running steps on a slope, and take a layer — it is cooler up there than on the terrace. Video of the flight is usually included, though at least one operator asks you to bring a memory card for it, which is an easy thing to forget on the day.

Where to book

• Parapente Factory — the La Mussara tandem flight
• Jaume Parapent, who flies the Alforja valley