Footloose Off the Beaten Path in Catalunya
Written: Jan 07 '01 (Updated Nov 16 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wonderful Destinations, Unique Culture, Fascinating History
Cons: Can be expensive
The Bottom Line: Catalunya/Catalonia is the most charming and beautiful area in Spain
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| Howard_Creech's Full Review: Spain |
It’s the first week of the third millennium, and outside it is finally starting to warm up a bit, after the coldest December on record. I got up this morning thinking about warmer times and sunnier climes. In July of 1969, just a few weeks before my tour of duty with the U. S. Army in Europe was due to end, I left Germany and took to the road for my second trip to Spain. The country had long fascinated me, Cervantes Don Quixote, Hemingway’s novels of the Spanish civil war, and films like Un Chien Andalou (a bizarre collaborative effort created by film maker Luis Bunuel and Surrealist Salvador Dali) made Spain seem romantic, tragic, and surreal, all at the same time.
I had just finished reading Jack Kerouac’s Lonesome Traveler, (a series of “beat” travel essays) and my plan was to hitch hike to Spain, explore Northeastern Catalunya, then follow the coast down to the tip of the Iberian Peninsula at Algeciras, and take the ferry to Morocco.
Catalunya (Catalonia) is best known to travelers and tourists for Barcelona and for the wonderful Mediterranean beaches along the Costa Brava and Costa Dorada, but there is much more. The area is incredibly beautiful, with lush mountains, fertile valleys, a wonderful climate, a beautiful coast, great food, and friendly people. Greek traders had established a thriving trade with the Iberian tribes in Catalunya as early as the sixth century BC. Three hundred years later the Phoenicians and Carthaginians were in direct competition with them for Iberia’s riches. After the Punic Wars, the Romans, replaced the Carthaginians and established Tarraco (present day Tarragona) as their Iberian stronghold, with smaller outposts in Barcelona, Emporiae, and Gerona.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, the Iberians fought a long losing battle with the Arab Moors from North Africa. In the eighth century AD Catalan Christians (with Charlemagne’s help) stopped the Moorish advance just short of the present day French Border. In 1492 Christopher Columbus departed from Catalunya’s capital, Barcelona, on his epic quest to discover the new world. Queen Isabella hocked her jewelry to pay for this voyage, a trip that made Spain the most powerful and wealthy nation in Europe.
The Catalans are not only linguistically different from the rest of Spain; they are culturally different as well. After the second republic was crushed by Franco’s Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan people suffered almost forty years of oppression under the fascists. Since Franco’s death in 1976, the Catalan language, and culture have been revived. The Sardana the beautiful lyrical national dance of Catalunya can be seen every Sunday (in front of most Cathedrals) and at festivals throughout the year. The Catalan language is heard everywhere in Northeastern Spain, and Catalan cultural icons are once again revered.
Most visitors to Catalunya head straight for Barcelona, or one of the dozens of famous Costa Brava beach resorts. The area has much to offer the tourist who is willing to forgo the swinging nightlife and cosmopolitan restaurants of Barcelona, and discos and nude beaches of the Costa Brava. Catalunya is an area known for nurturing and inspiring great artists, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Antoni Gaudi, and Pablo Picasso are a few of the better known. Leave Barcelona and the Beaches behind and strike out on an adventure to discover the real Catalunya.
Figueres/Figueras
One hundred kilometers north of Barcelona is Figueres, the town where Salvador Dali was born. Dali was well known for his fantastic moustaches, creating pictures of melting clocks, and for the surreal dream sequences in Hitchcock’s film Spellbound. In 1974, using the bombed out ruin of the Municipal Theatre (heavily damaged by Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War) Dali created one of the most unique and personal museums anywhere. The surrealistic fuscia building, topped with gigantic golden eggs, was the final and crowning artistic achievement of Dali’s long and colorful career. The artist is buried in an unmarked crypt in the museum (just a short distance from the small parish church where he was baptized in 1904). Inside the museum are many of Dali’s most famous creations, a wonderful and surreal “dada” nightmare, a loving and perceptive homage to Dali, by Dali.
The village of Roses is the oldest town in Catalunya. It was the Greek trading post of Rhode two and a half millennia ago. Situated on a breath- taking bay (Bahia de Rosas) the village is the northern Costa Brava’s most popular tourist destination. Across the bay is the village of Empuries, the site of a small Phoenician trading post, replaced in the sixth century BC by the Greek colonial village of Emporio, four centuries later it had become the Roman naval port of Emporiae. Archaeological excavations have been ongoing since 1908. Beautiful Greek and Roman seaside villas with incredible mosaics, an Acropolis, and dozens of other structures have been uncovered. The ruins are quite extensive and there is a museum on the site. The ghosts of many ancient romantic cultures roam the warm humid nights of Empuries. The area was a very popular beach campsite for backpackers during the sixties, luring young people from England, Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia. Empuries was my first destination during my 1969 trip. I have wonderful memories of drinking cheap Spanish wine, singing folk songs, sitting around a huge driftwood campfire, and sleeping on the soft warm sand, along with dozens of young European backpackers, the same beach that ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans had trod.
Just a few miles away, at the tip of the rugged and serene Cap de Creus is the seaside village of Cadaques, where Dali lived as a boy. Blinding white buildings with red tile roofs, a wonderful old church, winding cobblestone streets, a mountainous backdrop and beautiful Mediterranean beaches, make Cadaques the epitome of the “postcard” pretty Catalan seaside village. The wonderful Mediterranean light, vibrant colors, and a sense of time suspended, have attracted dozens of famous artists, among them Pablo Picasso. During the explosive tourist industry growth of the sixties and seventies, Cadaques prohibited hotel and resort construction, preserving the charm and beauty of the village.
Gerona/Girona
Gerona is Catalunya’s second city, a smaller and more intimate urban experience than Barcelona. A classic walled medieval fortress town, built by the Romans, who founded the city as a strategic military outpost and trading center called Gerunda. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, Gerona became an important Catholic city, in the battles between the Christians and Moors. The Moors ruled Gerona from 795 to 1015 AD.
Gerona is probably the best kept travel secret in Spain, a fascinating city of 75,000 that is almost unknown to tourists; filled with friendly people, dozens of important historical monuments, and small intimate restaurants, bars, and cafes. The old medieval heart of the city (the Barri Vell) has been lovingly preserved, and wandering the streets is like traveling back in time. Gerona has more “real” genuine gothic character than any city in Europe. The middle ages here are not a tourist attraction, but rather the foundation upon which the personality of the present day city is built. It is easy to get lost wandering around the narrow winding old cobblestone streets and suddenly discover a section of the ancient Roman defensive walls, or at another turning the tiny “red light” district, or a magnificent 12th century cathedral, or the ruins of the 12th century Arab baths. The “Call” the old Jewish quarter, is a wonderful atmospheric labyrinth of steep streets, and ancient buildings. From the ninth to the fifteenth centuries this perfectly preserved medieval enclave was the heart of Jewish life in northern Spain, and the seat of the Iberian Hebrew intellectual cabbala. The Jews who lived here were expelled from Spain in 1492.
Gerona is a charming romantic city with small museums, two thousand year old city walls, and the Church of St. Nicolau, a 12th century Romanesque, single nave church built on the foundation of an earlier Christian church. The basement of this church contains Christian burial remains dating from the fourth century. The city has a fantastic selection of small quaint “mom & pop” restaurants, tiny dark friendly bars, and unique shops with an eclectic selection of goods. We found a wonderful hardware store that sold beautiful hand-painted Spanish tiles, fashioned into planters, sundials, and dozens of other lovely but inexpensive decorative items.
Gerona hosts about 100,000 tourists every year, most from other parts of Spain. Foreign tourists are mostly British and French (so few Americans vist that we don't even appear on the city's tourist statistics). Because there are so few foreign tourists the prices in Gerona will amaze you. A meal for two (in a nice restaurant) that would cost $60-$80.00 in Barcelona will cost between $25-$30.00 in Gerona, and the service will be friendlier.
If you visit Gerona you will discover that the natives are happy to see you and nobody appears to be chasing the almighty dollar (maybe because they see so few here). Most visitors stay in the new city and cross the Pont de las Peixateries Velles pedestrian bridge across the Onyar River. For photographers, the first sight of the Barri Vell (the houses rise from the river as part of the city's defensive walls) will halt progress completely. The small Gothic houses are painted in rainbow shades that are perfectly mirrored in the still waters of the river. The bridge was designed by Gustave Eiffel (yes the same fellow who built that towering trifle in Paris) to show Gerona's most romantic aspect.
Gerona was the scene of one my favorite travel experiences. In July of 1988 my wife, my mother in law, and I were staying at a funky little hotel in the old city. We decided to take the train into Barcelona for the day, leaving our car and bags at our hotel. We walked to the train station and purchased our tickets, waited on the platform, and just a couple of minutes late, the train pulled in and we jumped on board. We struck up a conversation, with a British traveler, who informed us that we were not on the Barcelona train, but on the Algeciras express. We were looking at a very long train ride (with only three short stops) to the very southern tip of Spain and a connection with the ferry to Morocco. Our new British friend thought this was absolutely hilarious. We went to find the conductor and turn ourselves in, while our hungry English friend went looking for the dinning car. The Spanish conductor was very nice, he had us wait right by the exit doors of our car, when the train arrived in Tarragona, it stopped for just a minute (to pick up some crewmembers) and we jumped off. The final laugh was that the conductor told us that there was no dinning car on the train, so our hungry British friend (who was so amused at our mistake) was facing a very long trip with nothing to eat until he got to Algeciras
The Costa Dorada
South of Barcelona, during the sixties, each beach community played host to backpackers and bargain hunting sun worshipers from different northern European countries. Salou was the favorite destination for Germans, and most of the bars, hotels, and restaurants in the village had menus in German and prices posted in Deutschemarks. Sitges during this time was like a small English village on the Spanish beach, I found one of the most authentic English Pubs I have ever seen in this town. The place was run by an ex pat Londoner, and featured darts, pints of Guiness and Watneys, English breakfasts, fish and chips, tea instead of coffee, and the London newspapers; in the heart of Franco’s fascist Spain.
Tarragona, was the most important Roman town in Spain. The ancient aqueduct, an amphitheatre, a great old town, and a fantastic beach are all local attractions. While staying at the Hotel Blau Mar (“Blue Sea” in German) a small run down hotel less than 100 yards from the beach on July 21, 1969 I was rudely awakened from a sound sleep at about 4:00 am by the owner of the hotel. Although I was unable to understand why he was pounding on my door or what the problem was, I could tell from the proprietor’s demeanor that something serious was afoot. Dressing quickly and grabbing all my worldly possessions (a backpack and my army boots) I rushed downstairs to see what the emergency was.
The bar was filled with old Spanish fishermen and yawning young German backpackers. Everyone was staring at a small B&W Television behind the bar. The Hotel owner waved me over to the only empty seat at the bar, and I asked one of the Germans (my German is much better than my Spanish) what was going on. He said the owner had gone to wake me so that I wouldn’t miss the key moment of the Apollo Eleven moon-landing, Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface. Since I was the Hotel Blau Mar’s only American guest, they had saved me a spot at the bar so that I could watch my countryman take mankind’s first step on the moon. As the sole representative of the American people at that historic moment, I noticed that everyone was staring at me, and I suddenly realized that my belt wasn’t buckled, my shirt was not buttoned, and that I was standing barefoot, still holding my boots in my hand.
My visits to Catalunya have always been exciting and entertaining. I think yours will be too.
If you enjoyed reading this European Travel Review, please read my other European Travel Reviews:
France
Paris
http://www.epinions.com/trvl-review-4566-DD8CC47-39FC9BA6-prod2
The Camargue
http://www.epinions.com/trvl-review-3617-567A49E-389F1000-prod4
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Venice
http://www.epinions.com/content_41123483268
Volterra
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Bomarzo
http://www.epinions.com/trvl-review-720F-803CA72-38A1AC5B-bd3
Spain
Catalonia/Catalunya
http://www.epinions.com/trvl-review-3F7-31C0CC75-3A588817-prod2
Germany
Bavaria (Oberpfalz)
http://www.epinions.com/content_17703145092
Belgium
Bruges
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Scotland
Edinburgh
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Howard_Creech
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Member: Howard Creech
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 333
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About Me:
Photographer/Writer fascinated by Movies, Music, Books, American Diner Food, History, "Popular Culture", and Travel.
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