El sol ha anat daurant el llarg somni de l'aigua. Aquests ulls tan cansats del qui arriba a la calma han mirat, han comprès, oblidaven.
Lluny, enllà de la mar, se'n va la meva barca. De terra endins, un cant amb l'aire l'acompanya: "Et perdràs pel camí que no té mai tornada".
Sota la llum clement del mati, a la casa dels morts del meu vell nom, dic avui: "Sóc encara". M'adormiré demà sense por ni recança. I besarà l'or nou la serenor del marbre.
Solitari, en la pau del jardí dels cinc arbres, he collit ja el meu temps, la rara rosa blanca. Cridat, ara entraré en les fosques estances.
Cançó del matí encalmat, Salvador Espriu i Castelló
Descansa en pau, estimat Rafa. Que la terra et sigui lleu.
L'eau qui dormait'se réveille d'une longue nuit de sommeil C'est comme si j'étais parti, parti la veille Je suis entre la colline qui prie et la colline qui crie Je ferme les yeux et mange, mange un morceau de soleil
Je serai dilettante ou mort de rire en sentant la mort venir Du moins j'espère, j'espère, je serai dilettante à temps partiel Même à l'autre bout du ciel du moins j'espère, j'espère, j'espère Revoir la mer et la famille Le point du jour, la statue d'or, la tour en stylo bille
Lyon, presqu'île
Il y a une gare morne et l'autre fière d'aller jusqu'aux sports d'hiver C'est comme si j'étais parti, parti hier Et puis la statue du Roi-Soleil sur la grand place éternelle Des belles cours gorgées, gorgées, gorgées de soleil
Je serai dilettante et mort de rire en sentant la mort venir Du moins j'espère, j'espère, je serai dilettante à temps partiel Jusqu'à l'autre bout du ciel, du moins j'espère, j'espère Revoir la mer, et la famille Le point du jour, la statue d'or, la tour en stylo bille
Lyon, presqu'île, Lyon, presqu'île
Je voudrais m'éteindre ici ou pas loin de l'Italie Avec ceux que je chéris, chérie que j'aime Et puis regarder pousser le lierre, la guitare en bandoulière Même si je ne suis pas hippie, hippie, hippie chic, mais quand même
Je serai dilettante et mort de rire en sentant la mort venir Du moins j'espère, j'espère, je serai dilettante à temps partiel Jusqu'à l'autre bout du ciel, du moins j'espère, j'espère revoir
Lyon, presqu'île, Lyon, presqu'île
The sleeping water wakes from a long night's slumber It is as if I had left -left just the day before I stand between the hill that prays And the hill that screams I close my eyes, And eat, eat a piece of the sun. I’ll be a dilettante or die laughing As I feel death approaching At least, I hope, I hope, I hope I’ll be a part-time dilettante Even at the far end of the sky At least, I hope, I hope, I hope To see the sea again, and my family, Daybreak, the golden statue, the ballpoint-pen tower
Lyon, Presqu'île
There’s one dreary station and another proud one Bound for the winter sports resorts It feels as if I’d left—left just yesterday And then the statue of the Sun King In the eternal main square, Place Bellecour, bathed Bathed, bathed in sunlight
I’ll be a dilettante or die laughing As I feel death approaching At least, I hope, I hope, I hope I’ll be a part-time dilettante All the way to the far end of the sky At least, I hope, I hope, I hope To see again...
Lyon, Presqu'île Lyon Presqu'île
I’d like to pass away here Or not far from Italy With those I cherish -cherish and love- And watch the ivy grow With my guitar slung over my shoulder Even if I’m not a hippie-hippie, hippie-chic-still...
I’ll be a dilettante or die laughing As I feel death approaching At least, I hope, I hope, I hope I’ll be a part-time dilettante All the way to the far end of the sky At least, I hope, I hope, I hope To see again...
After a good while enjoying a football match that held little sporting interest but was deeply moving, today, Claire Fontaine and TheGrandma have decided to go for breakfast in Vieux Lyon before catching their flight back to Barcelona.
It is time to come back although Lyon is always home, too.
This morning, they have tasted a dessert that seemed very familiar.
Lyonesses? Lionesses? Lioneses?
Football? Gastronomy?
French? English? Catalan?
For a few moments, everything seemed to share the same name, and everything seemed, once again, very familiar and very dear.
After a salade lyonnaise, there should always be room for dessert. At least, that is what The Grandma and Claire Fontaine firmly believe. And in Lyon,surrounded by boulangeries, pâtisseries, chocolate shops and windows filled with irresistible little creations, there is certainly no shortage of possibilities.
But today The Grandma stopped in front of something extremely familiar. A small, round pastry. Light and hollow. Filled generously with cream. A chou à la crème. And The Grandma smiled. Because she had seen this before. Many, many times. Only at home, in Catalunya, she would probably have called it something different. Una lionesa.
And suddenly a very simple pastry raised a fascinating question. How can something so French feel so Catalan? The answer lies in one of the great travellers of European gastronomy: pâte à choux.
Few pastry doughs behave quite like pâte à choux. Flour, water or milk, butter and eggs. The ingredients could hardly be more ordinary. But the technique is unusual. Unlike most pastry doughs, the flour is first cooked with liquid and butter. The mixture is dried over heat to form what pastry chefs call a panade. Eggs are then gradually incorporated. And then the real magic happens in the oven. There is no yeast. There is no baking powder. Instead, the water contained in the dough becomes steam. The steam expands. The pastry rises. And inside, a cavity appears. The result is a light shell with an almost empty interior. And humanity, naturally, looked at that empty space and reached the only sensible conclusion: we should fill it with something delicious.
Cream. Chocolate. Pastry cream. Ice cream. Anything, really. The empty centre became an invitation.
The history of pâte à choux is surrounded by one particularly persistent story. According to the traditional account, the pastry was created in the sixteenth century by an Italian cook associated with Catherine de' Medici, who married the future Henri II of France in 1533. Different versions call this mysterious cook Pantanelli, Penterelli or Popelini. He supposedly created a preparation known as pâte à chaud -literally hot pastry- which later evolved into pâte à choux. It is a wonderful story. There is only one problem. It is almost certainly a legend.
Modern historical examination has challenged the idea that Catherine de' Medici arrived in France accompanied by an army of Italian cooks who revolutionised French cuisine. The supposed Italian creators of pâte à choux cannot be reliably documented at her court. And I rather like that uncertainty. Recipes rarely have birth certificates. They evolve. One cook changes something. Another improves it. A technique moves from one kitchen to another. Names change. Ingredients change. And eventually everybody forgets exactly where the journey began.
What we can follow more confidently is the evolution of the technique itself. Earlier preparations known as popelins or poupelins already existed in France. They involved a dough that was dried over heat before being baked. Eventually this family of preparations developed into what we recognise as modern pâte à choux. The great transformation took place particularly during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when French pastry became increasingly sophisticated.
Two names are especially important: Jean Avice and Marie-Antoine Carême. Avice, an important pastry chef of his time, helped develop the possibilities of the dough. Then came Carême. And Carême changed almost everything.
Marie-Antoine Carême was one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of European cuisine. Born into poverty in Paris in 1784, he eventually cooked for some of the most powerful people in Europe. But Carême was much more than a cook. He thought about food architecturally. His spectacular pièces montées transformed sugar, pastry and confectionery into towers, temples, ruins and monuments. He codified. He classified. He refined. And pâte à chouxbecame part of the sophisticated vocabulary of nineteenth-century Frenchpastry. From this extraordinary dough emerged an entire family.
Choux à la crème. Éclairs. Profiteroles. Religieuses. Paris-Brest. Saint-Honoré. Different shapes. Different fillings. Different presentations. But the same extraordinary principle: a cooked dough inflated largely by steam, leaving space inside for the pastry chef's imagination.
But why are they called choux?
Here language becomes delicious. In French, chou means cabbage. And choux is its plural. Look carefully at a little round baked choux pastry. With its irregular, folded surface, someone apparently thought it resembled a tiny cabbage. And the name stuck. So one of the foundations of elegant French pastry bears, essentially, the wonderfully unpretentious name: cabbage pastry. French has another affectionate expression: mon petit chou. Literally, my little cabbage. But used rather more charmingly as: my darling. Perhaps pastry and affection were destined to meet.
And then something even more interesting happened. Pâte à choux travelled. French pastry techniques became enormously influential throughout Europe, particularly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Pastry chefs moved. Cookbooks circulated. Hotels adopted French culinary terminology. Restaurants imitated Parisian fashions. Local pastry shops absorbed foreign techniques. And recipes that had once belonged to professional French pastry kitchens began appearing in bakeries far beyond France.
Portugal. Italy. Catalonia. Each culture adopted them. And often renamed them. This is where our story becomes particularly close to home.
In Catalonia, those small filled choux pastries became known as: lioneses. The word is completely natural to Catalan speakers. A lionesa literally means a woman or something from Lyon. And yet the irony is wonderful. The French themselves do not normally walk into a pâtisserie asking for a lyonnaise when they want one of these pastries. They ask for a chou à la crème. What Catalans call lioneses belongs to the wider French tradition of pâte à choux, rather than exclusively to Lyon.
Even modern descriptions of Lyon's gastronomy sometimes have to explain this curious distinction: the pastries popularly known elsewhere as lionesas are choux and are made throughout France, not just in Lyon. So somewhere during the pastry's journey south, geography became a name.
France gave us the pastry. And we gave it Lyon.
But something even more beautiful happens when food crosses a border. Eventually, we stop thinking of it as foreign.
In Catalunya, lioneses became completely at home. They entered neighbourhood pastry shops. They appeared in Sunday assortments. They were carried carefully inside cardboard boxes tied with string. They arrived after family lunches. And they acquired the fillings that generations of Catalans recogniseimmediately. Nata. Crema. Trufa.
The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana itself defines the lionesa as a small pastry made from what is sometimes called pasta choux, baked and then filled with chocolate, cream or custard. That definition tells us something important. The lionesa is no longer simply a French pastry eaten in Catalonia. It has entered the Catalan culinary vocabulary. It belongs here too.
And now we reach one of those questions capable of dividing otherwise perfectly reasonable people.
Which lionesa? Nata? Light whipped cream against the crisp pastry. Crema? Thick pastry cream, richer and more substantial. Or perhaps: Trufa? Cream transformed by chocolate.
There is no correct answer. Although every Catalan family probably contains somebody absolutely convinced that there is. Sometimes the pastries are finished with icing sugar. Sometimes chocolate. Sometimes they appear together on a tray, allowing everyone to choose. And perhaps that tray tells the story better than any history book could. Because the technique is French. The name points towards Lyon. The fillings have become familiar within Catalan pastry culture. And nobody sitting around the table needs to think about any of that. They simply reach for another one.
We often think about cultural exchange through enormous historical events. Wars. Empires. Migrations. Trade routes. Political borders. But culture also travels through much smaller things. A cooking technique. A recipe copied into a notebook. A pastry chef moving to another country. A word misunderstood or transformed. A customer tasting something abroad and wanting to recreate it at home. Food crosses borders remarkably easily. And when it arrives somewhere new, it changes. That is not corruption. That is culture.
The croissant travelled. Chocolate travelled. Coffee travelled. Tomatoes travelled. Potatoes travelled. And pâte à choux travelled too.
Eventually it crossed the Pyrenees and became so familiar that generations of Catalans would know one of its descendants simply as: la lionesa.
And this is why The Grandma finds today's dessert particularly charming. She travelled from Catalunya to Lyon. But the pastry had already made the opposite journey long before her. Perhaps not directly from Lyon. Perhaps not in one single journey. And certainly not with a passport identifying its birthplace. Recipes do not travel like that. They move from kitchen to kitchen. From chef to apprentice. From cookbook to cookbook. From country to country. And eventually they become part of somebody else's memories. That is what makes culinary history so fascinating. A recipe can belong to more than one place. France can recognise the chou. Catalunya can recognise the lionesa. And both can be right. Because food does something that borders sometimes struggle to do. It allows identities to overlap.
So today, sitting in Lyon, The Grandma looks at a little chou à la crème and sees something simultaneously foreign and familiar. France calls it chou. Catalunya calls it lionesa. The pastry itself does not seem particularly concerned. It has spent centuries crossing borders. And it knows that, sooner or later, wherever it goes... someone will fill it with cream.
Les beaux-arts sont au nombre de cinq : la peinture, la sculpture, la poésie, la musique et l'architecture, laquelle a pour branche principale la pâtisserie.
The fine arts are five in number: painting, sculpture, poetry, music and architecture, whose principal branch is pastry.
Leaving the Mediterranean behind is never easy. After Cap de Creus, els Aiguamolls de l'Empordà,medieval SantMartí and ancient Emporion, ClaireFontaine and The Grandma have driven to Girona,boarded an international high-speed train and headed north.
Destination: Lyon.
They have arrived at midday with just enough time to catch the tram from Part-Dieu station to Décines-OL Vallée,where they had an appointment with the Northern Star. They already know the city. The Grandma was working there during two years and Claire Fontaine has visited it several times, but Lyon is amazing and beautiful and it is always a pleasure to visit it. They had walked along the Saône and the Rhône, explored Vieux Lyon, climbed towards Fourvière and wandered through the streets of the Croix-Rousse.
So this time, perhaps, there was no need -only- to look upwards at monuments. It was time to look down. At the plate. Because understanding Lyon without understanding its food would mean understanding only half of the city. And there are few dishes that express the character of Lyonnaise cooking better than something apparently very simple: salade lyonnaise.
A handful of leaves. Smoked bacon. Croutons. A poached egg. A sharp vinaigrette. Nothing particularly luxurious. Nothing unnecessarily complicated. And yet, put them together properly and something remarkable happens.
This is Lyon in a bowl.
Lyon's relationship with food is almost impossible to separate from the identity of the city itself. Its geographical position helps explain why. Lyon stands at the confluence of two great rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, but it also lies at a crossroads between some of France's richest agricultural regions. To the north lies Burgundy. Nearby are Beaujolais and the vineyards of the Rhône Valley. Bresse provides its celebrated poultry. The surrounding countryside has supplied vegetables, cheeses, freshwater fish, pork and charcuterie.
For centuries, goods, travellers and culinary traditions have passed through the city. Lyon absorbed them. And then made them its own. Its gastronomic reputation eventually became so extraordinary that the famous French food writer Curnonsky proclaimed Lyon the world's capital of gastronomy.
But Lyonnaise cuisine was never only about grand restaurants. Quite the opposite. Some of its most characteristic dishes came from kitchens where economy mattered, where nothing was wasted and where inexpensive ingredients had to become something delicious.
That tradition survives in one of Lyon's most famous institutions: the bouchon.
A bouchon lyonnais is not simply a restaurant. It is an atmosphere. Tables stand close together. Conversations overlap. There may be wooden furniture, old photographs, copper pans and the almost inevitable red-and-white checked tablecloth. The food is generous rather than delicate. And pork appears everywhere. Sausages. Pâtés. Grattons. Andouillettes. The famous tablier de sapeur. Meals are accompanied traditionally by a pot lyonnais of local wine.
The philosophy is uncomplicated: eat well, drink well and do both in company.
The origin of the word bouchon itself is debated, although one traditional explanation connects it with bundles of straw once displayed outside inns serving wine to travellers and coachmen. What is beyond doubt is that the bouchon became one of the great expressions of Lyon's popular food culture. And somewhere among all those wonderfully robust dishes sits our salad.
Calling salade lyonnaise simply a salad is slightly misleading. Yes, there are leaves. Traditionally, a bitter green such as frisée works particularly well. But then Lyon intervenes. Into those leaves go pieces of bacon -lardons- fried until beautifully browned. Then come crisp croutons, often carrying the flavour of garlic. A vinaigrette provides acidity. And finally, on top: a poached egg. Cut into it and the yolk begins to run. It mixes with the vinaigrette. It coats the leaves. It reaches the bacon and the croutons. Suddenly the dressing is no longer merely a vinaigrette. The warm yolk transforms it into something richer and silkier.
Crisp lettuce. Crunchy bread. Salty pork. Sharp vinegar. Soft egg. Fat against acidity. Warm against cool. Simple ingredients producing a remarkably sophisticated balance. It is rustic food that understands perfectly what it is doing.
That rustic quality matters. Lyon's gastronomic identity cannot be understood without the people who worked in the city. And among them were the famous canuts. The canuts were Lyon's silk workers, particularly associated with the slopes and plateau of the Croix-Rousse. Their working lives were demanding, their hours long and their political and social history turbulent. They also contributed to one of Lyon's most characteristic gastronomic traditions: the mâchon.
After working through the night or beginning work extremely early, silk workers would gather for a substantial morning meal. Forget coffee and a croissant. A traditional mâchon meant charcuterie, offal and other robust dishes, usually accompanied by Beaujolais or Mâconnais wine.
It was nourishment. But it was also companionship. Workers ate together. Talked together. Shared food and wine around the same table. Some Lyonnais bouchons still preserve the tradition today. And although we should not invent a direct historical line claiming that the canuts created the salade lyonnaise, the dish belongs perfectly to this same culinary universe.
But there is another story behind Lyon's extraordinary gastronomic reputation. And it is a story largely written by women. They became known as the MèresLyonnaises -the Mothers of Lyon.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women who had often worked as cooks in bourgeois households began running their own establishments. Their cooking combined two worlds. From bourgeois kitchens came technique and precision. From popular cooking came thrift, local ingredients and the determination never to waste good food. The result became something uniquely Lyonnais. Simple food could be treated seriously. Cheap cuts could become extraordinary dishes. A cook did not need luxury ingredients to demonstrate skill.
Among these women was Mère Fillioux, famous for dishes such as her truffled poultry. And then came perhaps the greatest of them all: Eugénie Brazier. LaMère Brazier. Born into a modest farming family, she worked for Mère Fillioux before establishing her own restaurant in Lyon in 1921. In 1933, she achieved something astonishing: her two establishments received three Michelin stars each. Six stars. A culinary legend had been born.
Years later, a young cook would work in her kitchen. His name was Paul Bocuse. The journey from the Mères Lyonnaises to Bocuse tells us something fundamental about Lyon. Here, popular cooking and haute cuisine were never entirely separate worlds. One grew from the other.
And this brings us back to our salad. There is no palace on the plate. No expensive ingredient is required. A traditional salade lyonnaise is built from things that ordinary kitchens could have: some greens, some bread, some bacon, an egg, vinegar and mustard. The genius lies in what happens between them. Old bread becomes croutons rather than waste. A modest amount of pork gives flavour to an entire plate. An egg supplies richness. Bitter leaves prevent that richness from becoming heavy. Vinegar cuts through the fat. This is cooking based on balance rather than luxury.
And perhaps that is why the dish feels so profoundly Lyonnais. It shares the philosophy that made the bouchons famous: straightforward ingredients, generous flavours and food designed to be enjoyed rather than admired from a distance.
This is one of the things I love most about Lyon. The city refuses to choose between sophistication and simplicity. It gave France the Mères Lyonnaises. It gave the world Paul Bocuse. Its gastronomic restaurants became internationally famous. And yet the city's culinary soul can still be found inside a noisy bouchon, sitting at a small wooden table with a plate of sausage, quenelles, cervelle de canut -which, despite its alarming name, is actually seasoned fresh cheese- or a humble salade lyonnaise.
Perhaps there is no contradiction. Perhaps that is precisely the point. Great cooking does not necessarily begin with expensive ingredients. It begins with understanding them.
Travel is often remembered through monuments. A cathedral. A castle. A Roman ruin. A museum. But sometimes memory chooses something much smaller. A smell. A table. A glass of wine. An egg yolk running slowly over warm bacon and crisp bread. And suddenly an entire city returns. That is what food can do.
After several days travelling through landscapes marked by geology, wetlands, Greek settlers, Roman soldiers, medieval counts and archaeologists, Lyon offered The Grandma and Claire Fontaine another way of understanding history.
Through taste. Because recipes travel through time too. They change. They adapt. They absorb influences. They preserve habits long after the people who created those habits have disappeared. The salade lyonnaise may appear modest beside the architectural splendour of Vieux Lyon or the great culinary mythology surrounding Paul Bocuse.
But perhaps that modesty is precisely its charm. Frisée. Lardons. Croutons. A poached egg. Four ordinary ingredients. And behind them, an entire world of bouchons, canuts, Mères Lyonnaises, markets, workers, cooks and shared tables.
Sometimes you do not need a monument to understand a city. Sometimes Lyonfits perfectly inside a salad bowl.
Today, Claire Fontaine & The Grandma visited Empúries and stayed at VillaTeresita, where they spent the night before leaving tomorrow for Girona to catch the train to Lyon.
Both are lovers of history and archaeology, and Empúries is a magical place where the modern Mediterranean coexists with its Roman (Emporiae) and Greek (Emporion) past.
Being able to rest in the very spot where, over a century ago, Josep Puig i Cadafalch directed the excavations at Empúries is an indescribable feeling; it is history knocking at your door, sharing breakfast with you, and enjoying views that have remained unchanged for centuries.
There are places where history is preserved in books. And there are places where history lies beneath your feet. Empúries belongs to the second kind. Walking along the coast from Sant Martí d'Empúries, with the Mediterranean on one side and pine trees on the other, it is difficult not to feel that this landscape has been waiting for travellers for thousands of years.
Today, the Camí de Ronda follows one of the most beautiful stretches of the Empordà coastline. But more than 2,500 years ago, other travellers were already arriving here from across the sea. They were Greeks. And they came to trade.
Around 575 BC, Greek settlers from Phocaea, through their colony of Massalia -modern Marseille- established themselves on a small island close to the coast. This first settlement, the Palaia Polis or Old City, occupied the promontory where Sant Martí d'Empúries stands today.
Some decades later, they expanded onto the mainland. The new settlement became Emporion. Its name says almost everything. Emporion meant a trading place, a market, a place where people and goods met. And that is precisely what Emporion became. Not merely a Greek city on the western edge of the Mediterranean, but a meeting point between worlds.
The Greeks who settled at Emporion did not arrive in an empty land. The indigenous Iberian communities were already living here. What developed was therefore not simply a transplanted Greek world but a frontier of contact, exchange and negotiation. Ships brought ceramics, wine, oil and manufactured products from across the Mediterranean. From the surrounding territories came agricultural products, metals and other goods. But objects were not the only things travelling. Ideas travelled. Languages travelled. Religious beliefs travelled. Art travelled. Ways of measuring, trading and understanding the world travelled too.
Emporion became one of the great gateways through which Mediterranean culture entered the Iberian Peninsula. That is perhaps why standing among its ruins feels so different from visiting an archaeological site isolated from its surroundings. The sea is still there. You can see it from the ancient streets. And suddenly geography explains history. The Greeks chose this place because the Mediterranean was not a barrier. It was their road.
Centuries later, another Mediterranean power arrived at exactly the same place. In 218 BC, during the Second Punic War, Roman troops commanded by Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio landed at Emporion as Rome began its military intervention in the Iberian Peninsula. That landing would have enormous consequences. The Roman presence expanded. A military camp was established. Eventually a Roman city grew beside the Greek one.
Emporion became Emporiae.
Today, Empúries is exceptional because it is the only archaeological site inthe Iberian Peninsula where the remains of a Greek city and a Romancity coexist side by side. Walking through the site means moving physically between two civilizations. In the Greek city we can still identify the Agora, sanctuaries, streets, houses and commercial spaces. In the Roman city appear another urban language: the Forum, the Basilica, the Curia, baths, shops and large houses decorated with mosaics.
Two cities. Two political systems. Two cultures. And one Mediterraneanlandscape.
Yet eventually both cities declined. By Late Antiquity, population had increasingly concentrated again around the old Palaia Polis -the place we visited in Sant Martí d'Empúries. The great classical city slowly disappeared beneath the earth. For centuries, Empúries became a memory.
Until archaeology brought it back. And here another fascinating chapter begins. Not in the sixth century BC. But in the twentieth century.
In 1908, the Junta de Museus de Barcelona began systematic archaeological excavations at Empúries under the direction of Josep Puig i Cadafalch.
Puig i Cadafalch is usually remembered as one of the great architects of Catalan Modernisme. Casa Amatller. Casa de les Punxes. Casa Martí. The Casaramona factory. But reducing him to architecture would mean missing an extraordinary part of his intellectual life. He was also an art historian, archaeologist, scholar of Romanesque architecture, founder of the Institutd'Estudis Catalans and later president of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya. For Puig i Cadafalch, studying the past was not an antiquarian curiosity.
Understanding the architecture, archaeology and art of earlier centuries was a way of understanding the historical formation of Catalunya itself. And Empúries offered something extraordinary. Here was tangible evidence that the history of this land belonged to the great history of the Mediterranean. Puig i Cadafalch promoted and directed the excavations from 1908 until 1923.
Under the soil began to reappear streets. Walls. Temples. Houses. Mosaics. Inscriptions. Objects that had last been touched by people two thousand years earlier. Archaeology was giving a forgotten city back its voice.
But there is a much more intimate part of this story that I particularly love. Just beside the archaeological site, overlooking the Mediterranean, stands today the beautiful Hostal Empúries. Its story began in 1907. The original building was called Villa Teresita, and it was built specifically to accommodate the archaeologists working on the recovery of Empúries.
Think about that for a moment. More than a century ago, archaeologists slept here while one of the most important archaeological sites in Catalunya was beginning to emerge from the earth only a few hundred metres away. In the morning they could leave the house and walk towards the excavations. At the end of the working day, they returned towards the sea. Perhaps they discussed the discoveries they had made that morning.
A wall. A mosaic. A Greek inscription. A fragment of pottery. A coin. A sculpture. Small pieces of evidence from which an entire city had to be reconstructed.
Villa Teresita eventually evolved into the present Hostal Empúries,becoming an early landmark of tourism in the area even before the expression Costa Brava became established. And somehow that continuity seems perfect. A building created for people who came here because of the past eventually became a place for people who come here because of the beauty of the present.
And what a present it is. There are archaeological sites whose surroundings have been swallowed by modern cities. Empúries has been extraordinarily fortunate. The landscape remains an essential part of the experience. The Mediterranean liesonly metres away. Pine trees frame the coastline. Small beaches interrupt the rocks. The camí de ronda connects L'Escala, the beaches, the archaeological site and Sant Martí d'Empúries. And beside the path stands the old home of the archaeologists. It creates an almost perfect sequence: sea, path, hotel, ruins, Sant Martí.
But these are not separate places. They belong to the same story. The Greek sailors saw this coastline. The Roman soldiers saw it. Medieval inhabitants of Empúries saw it. Puig i Cadafalch and his archaeologists saw it. And we see it today.
The landscape becomes the one element connecting people separated by more than two millennia.
Perhaps this is why the work begun in 1908 matters so much. Archaeology does more than recover objects. It restores relationships. A piece of pottery tells us about trade. A coin tells us about power. A house tells us about family and wealth. A temple tells us about belief. A street tells us how people moved. A harbour tells us where they came from. And Empúries tells us that this corner of the Empordà has never really been peripheral.
For the Greeks who sailed westwards across the Mediterranean, it was a gateway. For Rome, it became an entry point into the Iberian Peninsula. For medieval Catalunya, nearby Sant Martí became the centre of a county. And for the archaeologists of the twentieth century, Empúries became a place where the country's ancient Mediterranean past could literally be brought back into the light.
More than a century after Puig i Cadafalch began directing the excavations, archaeological research continues here. There is something wonderfully appropriate about that. Because Empúries is still unfinished. There are still questions beneath the earth.
Perhaps the Greeks chose the perfect name. Emporion. A meeting place. Because this has always been a place of encounters. Between Greeks and Iberians. Between Greece and Rome. Between land and sea. Between archaeology and memory. Between the ancient world and modern Catalunya.
And walking today along the Camí de Ronda, past the old house that once welcomed Puig i Cadafalch's archaeologists, towards the ruins with the Mediterranean glittering beside them, those different periods of history seem strangely close to one another.
Today, in Sant Martí d'Empúries, we have stand where medieval Catalunya began to take shape. We only have needed to walk a few hundred metres to travel much further back. To a time when ships appeared on the horizon carrying merchants from the other side of the Mediterranean. They came looking for a place to trade. They founded Emporion. And more than 2,500 years later, we are still walking through its streets.
Today, Claire Fontaine and TheGrandma have visited Sant Martíd'Empúries andhave reflected on theimportance of the Catalancounties inthe history of this old and amazing nation.
Not far from the wetlands of the Aiguamolls de l'Empordà, where water, reeds and migrating birds dominate the landscape, there is a beautiful and small promontory overlooking the Mediterranean.
Today, Sant Martí d'Empúries seems almost impossibly peaceful. A handful of stone houses. A church. Medieval walls. Narrow streets opening towards the sea. Yet this tiny place once stood at the centre of a political world that would contribute to the making of medieval Catalunya.
To understand its importance, however, we must look far beyond the walls that surround it today. Because Sant Martí d'Empúries is not simply a medieval village. It is a place where history never really stopped.
Long before medieval counts ruled from here, Greek sailors had already recognised the strategic importance of this small piece of land. Around the 6th century BC, they established their first settlement on what was then a small island just off the coast. They called the settlement Emporion, a name connected with trade and commerce.
This first Greek settlement became what archaeologists call the Palaia Polis -the Old City. Later, the Greeks expanded onto the mainland, creating the Neapolis,while centuries afterwards the Romans established their own city beside it. In 218 BC, during the Second Punic War, the harbour of Empúries became the gateway through which Roman troops entered the Iberian Peninsula.
Few places in Catalunya illustrate so clearly the successive layers of Mediterranean history. Greek. Roman. Late Roman. Visigothic. Carolingian. Medieval Catalan. And remarkably, while the great Greek and Roman cities gradually disappeared, the old promontory survived.
From the third century onwards, as Roman Emporiae declined, population increasingly concentrated around what is now Sant Martí. During Late Antiquity it remained an important fortified settlement and Empúries became an episcopal see, documented from at least the early sixth century. Archaeological evidence also shows that its harbour continued to connect the settlement with the wider Mediterranean world. The ancient trading post had learned how to survive. And it would survive once again when the political map of Europe changed dramatically after the collapse of the Roman and Visigothic worlds.
To understand medieval Catalunya, we have to forget modern borders for a moment. There was no medieval morning on which somebody suddenly created Catalunya. Its emergence was a long historical process. During the late eighth and early ninth centuries, the Carolingian rulers established and reorganised a series of counties south of the Pyrenees. These territories formed part of the frontier between the Carolingian world to the north and Al-Andalus to the south.
Barcelona, Girona, Osona, Urgell, Cerdanya, Rosselló and Empúries were among the counties that would eventually become fundamental pieces of the political geography of medieval Catalunya. At first, their counts exercised authority within the Carolingian political system. But distance matters. And frontiers create their own realities.
As Carolingian royal authority weakened during the ninth and tenth centuries, the counts became increasingly autonomous. Offices that had once depended upon royal appointment gradually became hereditary, and local dynasties consolidated their control over their territories.
The counties remained connected by alliances, marriages, rivalries, ecclesiastical networks and common political interests. But they were not a single state. This fragmented political landscape is one of the keys to understanding the origins of Catalunya. And Empúries was part of it.
The County of Empúries occupied an important territory in northeastern Catalunya, originally extending along the coast from the Albera range towards the area south of the River Ter. Its geographical position gave it a distinctive character. This was a county of plains and wetlands, rivers and mountains. But above all, it was a county facing the Mediterranean. The sea offered trade and communication. It also brought danger. Piracy and maritime attacks were a constant concern, and the exposed position of Empúries made defence essential. The settlement suffered particularly during the turbulent ninth century, and the comital centre eventually began moving inland.
But Sant Martí remained important. Count Gausbert restored or rebuilt the settlement in the tenth century, around 927. Contemporary evidence presents it not as an insignificant village but as an important fortified centre.
There was a count. There was a court. There were walls. There was a church. And there was a harbour.
An Arabic account describing an expedition against Empúries in 933 even refers to its harbour, shipyards and fortifications -evidence of a maritime activity that was still very much alive. Standing today beside the quiet Mediterranean, it is difficult to imagine that same coastline filled with ships, soldiers, merchants and sailors. But the sea in medieval Empúries was not the edge of the world. It was a road.
The County of Empúries appears in the historical record in the early ninthcentury. Its political history was closely connected at first with neighbouring Rosselló, and different counts governed these territories within the Carolingiansphere.
Over time, however, local dynasties strengthened their position. This process was not unique to Empúries. Across the future Catalan lands, the same transformation was occurring: political power was becoming increasingly rooted in local families and territories.
One revealing figure was Gausfred I, Count of Empúries and Rosselló during much of the tenth century. His reign illustrates the increasing autonomy of the Catalan counts. Sources indicate that he began using the formula by the grace of God and issued coinage without the name of the Frankish king -small gestures perhaps, but politically significant ones.
Power was slowly changing its language. The counts were no longer merely distant representatives of another ruler. They were becoming rulers in their own right. This gradual transformation is essential to understanding the emergence of medieval Catalunya. It was not created by a declaration. It evolved.
Eventually, however, Sant Martí's position became a weakness. Its exposure to maritime attacks and the changing political and economic geography of the county encouraged the counts to move their centre of power inland.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries, Castelló d'Empúries increasingly assumed the role of capital, a transfer that was effectively completed by the time of Count Hug II in the late eleventh century. The move was logical. Castelló offered greater security and stood at the centre of an extensive agricultural territory. But Sant Martí never disappeared. Its walls remained. Its church remained. Its people remained. And perhaps most importantly, its memory remained.
The present Church of Sant Martí is much later than the first medieval church documented here. The current building dates largely from the beginning of the sixteenth century, while parts of the medieval walls and castle belong principally to the thirteenth century. So what we see today is not a perfectly preserved Carolingian capital. History rarely offers us anything so simple. Instead, SantMartí is a palimpsest. Every generation wrote something upon it without completely erasing what came before.
Perhaps this is where Sant Martí becomes much more than a beautiful medieval village. It helps us understand the peculiar way in which Catalunya was formed.
The medieval Catalan counties were political territories with their own rulers, institutions, aristocratic networks and relationships with monasteries, bishoprics and neighbouring powers. They competed. They negotiated. They married into one another. They fought. And gradually some became more powerful than others.
The County of Barcelona would eventually acquire a dominant position, but that later predominance should not make us forget the importance of counties such as Empúries, Rosselló, Cerdanya, Urgell, Pallars or Besalú.
Medieval Catalunya was not simply Barcelona expanding outwards. Its history was woven from many territories. Empúries was one of those threads. Indeed, the counts of Empúries preserved a remarkable degree of political identity for centuries, sometimes cooperating with and sometimes resisting the increasingly powerful House of Barcelona. The county was finally incorporated into the royal domain at the beginning of the fifteenth century, after a long and complicated history of dynastic changes and conflicts. That longevity matters. Because it reminds us that medieval political geography was far more complex than the borders we see on maps today. A landscape that remembers And then there is the landscape itself. This is perhaps what makes Sant Martí d'Empúries so extraordinary. You can stand on the medieval walls and look towards the same Mediterranean that brought Greek merchants here more than 2,500 years ago. Behind you lies the Empordà plain. Not far away are the wetlands of the Aiguamolls. To the north rises the landscape of Cap de Creus. And beneath your feet are centuries of human occupation.
Few places allow us to move so naturally from the classical Mediterranean into medieval Catalunya.
Emporion became Emporiae. Emporiae became medieval Empúries. The ancient trading settlement became an episcopal centre. The episcopal centre became a comital capital. And the comital capital eventually became the small village we see today. The place changed. The people changed. The languages changed. The religions, rulers and political systems changed. But the promontory remained. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of Sant Martí d'Empúries. History is rarely a succession of clean beginnings and endings. It is continuity transformed. And here, beside the Mediterranean, the stones of an ancient Greek settlementeventually became part of the landscape from which medieval Catalunya emerged.
Today, ClaireFontaine, and TheGrandma have visited elsAiguamolls de l'Empordà,one of the most spectacular spots for birdwatching.
The best time for birdwatching is between August and October, as these are the migration seasons; consequently, the three friends enjoyed a wonderful day in the company of thousands of birds that make the Aiguamolls their seasonal or permanent home.
After the rocky landscapes of Cap de Creus, the Mediterranean cliffs and the underwater world beneath the surface, there is another way of discovering the Empordà. You simply have to follow the water inland.
At the eastern end of Catalunya, where the rivers Muga and Fluvià reach the Bayof Roses, lies one of the most extraordinary wetlands in the Mediterranean: Els Aiguamolls de l'Empordà.
At first sight, it may seem like a completely different world from Cap de Creus. There are no spectacular cliffs here. No mountains plunge into the sea. There is no geological drama of folded rocks or submarine canyons. Instead, there are lagoons, reed beds, flooded meadows, rivers, canals, dunes and shallow waters. And birds. Thousands of them. Some live here permanently. Others arrivefrom northern Europe to spend the winter. Others stop here for a few days during their enormous migrations between Europe and Africa.
Els Aiguamolls are not simply a place where birds can be seen. They are a place where birds need to be. They are the remains of a much larger landscape.
In the past, extensive wetlands and lagoons occupied much of the plain around the Bay of Roses. The Muga and Fluvià transported sediments towards the coast, gradually contributing to the formation of the present-day plain. Sand barriers separated many of these wetlands from the sea.
Over the centuries, however, humans transformed the landscape. Wetlands were drained. Rivers and channels were modified. Land was converted into agricultural fields and pastures.
From the eighteenth century onwards, the process of draining lagoons and wetlands intensified as more land was required for farming and livestock. Later, tourism and urban development created further pressure on the remaining wetlands.
What survives today is therefore only part of a much larger ecosystem. And that makes its survival even more remarkable. The protected area preserves a mosaic of habitats: freshwater and brackish lagoons, coastal wetlands, reed beds, rivers, riparian forests, flooded meadows, dunes and agricultural landscapes.
This diversity is one of the secrets of els Aiguamolls. Different birds need different habitats. And here, within a relatively small area, they can find an extraordinary variety of them.
The numbers tell part of the story. 338 bird species have been recorded in the park, with 82 species regularly breeding there. But numbers alone cannot explain what it feels like to stand beside a lagoon at dawn. The first thing you notice may be silence. Then movement. A splash. A distant call. A bird crossing the sky. A group of ducks suddenly taking flight. A heron standing perfectly still at the edge of the water. And then you realise that the apparently quiet landscape is full of life.
The Aiguamolls are particularly important because they lie on one ofthe great migratory routes connecting Europe and Africa.
Twice a year, birds cross enormous distances in search of suitable places to feed, rest and reproduce. For many of them, elsAiguamolls are not optional. They are stations along a continental journey. Without places like els Aiguamolls, migration becomes much more difficult.
One of the most spectacular birds you can encounter here is the white stork, Ciconia ciconia. Its long legs, enormous wings and unmistakable silhouette make it impossible to confuse with most other birds. But the story of the white stork in els Aiguamolls is also a story of conservation. The species was reintroduced to the park and has been breeding there since 1987. Today it is one of the birds most strongly associated with the landscape.
Watching a stork walking slowly through a wet meadow, searching for food, seems almost effortless. But behind that elegant appearance lies an extraordinary traveller. White storks migrate between Europe and Africa,crossing vast distances twice a year. For them, els Aiguamolls can provide something absolutely essential: food and rest. And sometimes, a place to raise the next generation.
If there is a bird that seems to understand the philosophy of a wetland, it is the heron. The grey heron, Ardea cinerea, can stand motionless at the water's edge for what seems like an eternity. Then, in a fraction of a second, everything changes. Its neck extends. Its bill becomes a spear. And the fish has almost no chance.
ElsAiguamolls also provide habitat for the little egret, Egretta garzetta, a much smaller and more delicate relative with brilliant white plumage. And among the breeding species is the purple heron, Ardea purpurea, a particularly elegant bird associated with reed beds and wetlands. The purple heron is perfectly adapted to its environment. Its long body and muted colours allow it to disappear among the reeds. Sometimes you are looking directly at one without actually seeing it. Until it moves.
The reed beds are among the most mysterious parts of els Aiguamolls. From outside, a reed bed can look like a wall of vegetation. Inside, however, there is another universe. Small birds move through the stems. Calls come from places you cannot see. Something rustles in the vegetation. Then disappears. Among the breeding species is the little bittern, Ixobrychus minutus, a tiny heron that can be remarkably difficult to spot.
There is also the much rarer great bittern, Botaurus stellaris. The great bittern is one of those birds that seems almost designed to remain hidden. It lives among dense reed beds and uses camouflage so effectively that even an experienced observer may struggle to find it. This is one of the pleasures of birdwatching in wetlands. Sometimes the most exciting observation is not the bird you see immediately. It is the bird you spend twenty minutes trying to find.
If the herons are the specialists of patience, ducks are among the great inhabitants of the open water. The Aiguamolls support large numbers of waterfowl, particularly during winter. The mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, is one of the most abundant species. It breeds regularly in the park and can occur in very large numbers. Other ducks include the Eurasian teal, Anas crecca, the Eurasian wigeon, Anas penelope, the Northern shoveler, Anas clypeata and the gadwall, Anasstrepera.
Winter changes the character of the wetlands. Birds arrive from northern and central Europe. The landscape becomes busier. More movement. More calls. More wings. The official park information notes that wintering waterfowl can reach very significant numbers, making Els Aiguamolls one of the most important wintering areas for aquatic birds in Catalunya.
And then, occasionally, a splash of pink appears. Flamingos. The greater flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus, uses the wetlands as a wintering or migratory stopover site, although numbers can be relatively small compared with some other Mediterranean wetlands. There is something almost surreal about seeing flamingos in the Empordà. Their long legs. Their curved necks. Their extraordinary colour. The reflection of their bodies in shallow water. For a moment, the landscape seems to belong somewhere much farther south. But this is precisely what migration does. It connects places that appear geographically distant. Africa and Europe. North and south. Summer and winter. One ecosystem becomes part of another.
Among the most fascinating birds associated with els Aiguamolls is the purplegallinule, Porphyrio porphyrio. It is an extraordinary bird. Its plumage combines deep blue and violet tones with flashes of red and yellow. It looks almost tropical. Yet it is a Mediterranean wetland bird.
Its presence in els Aiguamolls is also connected with conservation work: the species was reintroduced after disappearing from the area in the middle of the twentieth century. This is another reminder that protected areas are not simply places where nature is left untouched. Sometimes conservation means repairing what humans have damaged. Sometimes it means giving a species another opportunity.
And then there is one of the most magical encounters a birdwatcher can have. The common kingfisher, Alcedo atthis. You may be standing quietly beside a river or lagoon when something bright blue suddenly shoots across your field of vision. It is there. And then it is gone.
The kingfisher's colours are extraordinary, but its hunting technique is even more impressive. It watches from a perch and then dives into the water with astonishing precision.
Els Aiguamolls provide suitable habitat for breeding pairs of kingfishers,particularly around watercourses and wetlands. Seeing one is often less like watching a bird and more like witnessing a piece of blue light passing through the landscape.
Perhaps no group illustrates the importance of elsAiguamolls better than the waders. These birds live at the boundary between land and water. They walk through mud. They search among shallow pools. They probe the sediment with their bills. They exploit the tiny organisms hidden beneath the surface.
Els Aiguamolls regularly host a remarkable diversity of waders -up to 32 species are mentioned in the park's documentation. Among them are the little ringed plover, Charadrius dubius, little stint, Calidris minuta, redshank, Tringa totanus and wood sandpiper, Tringa glareola.
There are also species such as the black-winged stilt, Himantopus himantopus and the elegant avocet, Recurvirostra avosetta. The avocet is particularly beautiful. Its long, upward-curving bill sweeps through shallow water as it searches for food. Its black-and-white plumage makes it look almost unreal. It is another example of how specialised these birds have become for life at the edge of water.
Migration is perhaps the most extraordinary spectacle of els Aiguamolls. During spring and autumn, thousands of birds use elsAiguamolls as a place to stop, feed and recover. They may have travelled hundreds or thousands of kilometres. Some will continue north. Others will continue south. Some will remain for the winter. ElsAiguamolls are therefore not simply a destination. They are a refuelling station on one of nature's greatest journeys. And timing matters.
Weather conditions can transform the number and variety of birds present from one day to another. A favourable wind can bring migrants into elsAiguamolls.Suddenly, a landscape that seemed quiet can become full of unfamiliar species. Among the migrants recorded in the park are glossy ibis, spoonbill, osprey and numerous waders and waterfowl.
It is a specialist fish hunter, capable of hovering and then plunging into the water to catch its prey. Seeing an osprey above a Mediterranean wetland is a wonderful reminder that migration connects ecosystems separated by enormous distances.
Els Aiguamolls are not only a refuge for small birds and waterfowl. They also attract predators. The marsh harrier, Circus aeruginosus is one of the most characteristic birds of elsAiguamolls. It flies low over the reeds and open areas, searching for prey. Unlike an eagle soaring high above a mountain, the marsh harrier belongs intimately to elsAiguamolls landscape. It follows the contours of the reeds. It moves slowly. And then suddenly accelerates.
Other birds of prey can also be seen, including the buzzard, Buteo buteo, sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus, kestrel, Falco tinnunculus and peregrinefalcon, Falco peregrinus. Even the sky above elsAiguamolls has its own food web.
The landscape is constantly changing. Perhaps that is the greatest attraction of Els Aiguamolls de l'Empordà. The water level changes. The light changes. The vegetation changes. The seasons change. And, above all, the birds change. A place that looks completely different in August may be almost unrecognisable in January. A species that is common in winter may disappear in spring. Another species may arrive from Africa. A bird that was only passing through may decide to breed. The wetlands are never quite the same twice.
There is a beautiful connection between this landscape and Cap de Creus. At Capde Creus, the Mediterranean meets ancient rocks. Here, it meets the rivers. At Capde Creus, the wind has sculpted cliffs. Here, water has created wetlands. At Capde Creus, life clings to the rocks beneath the sea. Here, life moves through reeds, lagoons and flooded meadows. But both landscapes tell the same story. Water creates life. And wherever water creates a place to rest, feed and reproduce, animals will find it.
Els Aiguamolls are therefore much more than a collection of lagoons. They are part of a continental network of wetlands that birds have been using for generations. A place where a bird flying between Africa and Europe can stop.A place where a stork can build its nest. Where a kingfisher can hunt. Where a heron can wait. Where ducks can gather by the thousands. Where a flamingo can briefly turn a Mediterranean lagoon pink. Where a marsh harrier can patrol the reeds. And where, if you stand quietly enough, the entire landscape begins to speak.
Perhaps the most beautiful lesson of els Aiguamolls is not about birds. It is about stopping. We live in a world obsessed with movement. Faster journeys. Longer distances. More destinations. But migratory birds know something different. Even the greatest travellers need somewhere to rest. They need water. They need food. They need shelter. They need safe places between one destination and another. Els Aiguamolls de l'Empordà are one of those places. A small but essential pause in an enormous journey. And perhaps that is why standing beside one of its lagoons can feel strangely peaceful. Because while we are watching the birds resting, we are also witnessing one of nature's most extraordinary achievements: the ability tocross continents -and still know where to stop.
I had the opportunity to see you perform live in 1993 at the Circus Maximus Theater in Atlantic City. I had visited the city drawn by Bruce Springsteen's song, only to encounter the goddess of country music.
As a huge fan of folk music -and by extension, country music- I have always followed and enjoyed your work, alongside that of Tammy, Shania, and Emmylou. Tammy left us some years ago, and today you have decided to join her.
Artists possess the greatness of never truly dying, for your works endure through time. While the vast majority of people will likely remember you for "Jolene" or as the original songwriter of "I Will Always Love You" -a song Whitney later covered with the kind of breathtaking excellence only she could achieve- for me, the song that has always moved me the most is "Coat of Many Colors." It is a masterpiece with incredibly powerful lyrics and chords as simple as your voice; for that is what your voice was: simple, powerful, honest, transparent, and sensitive.
We are currently sailing the Mediterranean, and our small tribute to you is "Sail Away." We know you won't be coming back, but we also know that one day we, too, will arrive at the place where you must now be singing and bringing happiness to others.
We will always love you. Thank you so much for your music, your commitment to children's education, and your love of literature.
It's my tears that fill this ocean And my sorrow rocks these waves 'Cause my true love took the notion To take my heart and sail away
Sail away, he sailed away Promised he'd be back one day Left me crying in his wake Sailors, they sail away He sailed away, he sailed away
Mothers warn your sweet young daughters Pure of heart and fair of face Sparkling eyes like sun on water Tell them "Sailors sail away"
Sail away, they sail away Promise they'll return one day Some will do just as they say But mostly they just sail away They sail away, they sail away Sailors they sail away
A sailor's true love is the sea They give what's left to you and me And yet we love them anyway Knowing they Will sail away Sailors they just sail away
Sail away, they sail away They sail away, they sail away They sail away, they sail away They sail away, they sail away
Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn't get some of that stuff out.
After spending a few days with her Neapolitan friends, The Grandma is spending some time on the CostaBrava,where she plans to enjoy her favourite hobbies: sailing, scuba diving, history, birdwatching, and literature.
And she won't be alone, as ClaireFontaine and Joseph de Ca'th Lon have joined her to enjoy a few days of rest before visiting Lyon next weekend, where a very interesting football match awaits them.
As an older person, TheGrandma has been reflecting on the wonderful, unique places the Catalan coast has to offer, and she started with Cap de Creus, where they enjoyed a fantastic day of scuba diving in a fascinating and beautiful location.
There are places where nature seems to have decided to show everything it is capable of doing. Cap de Creus is one of those places.
After spending some time in Napoli and writing about Vesuvius, it feels almost natural to continue the journey through another landscape where geology and life are impossible to separate. Vesuvius is a volcano that reminds us that the Earth is still alive beneath our feet. Cap de Creus tells a different story: one of ancient mountains, metamorphic rocks, tectonic forces, wind, erosion and a Mediterranean Sea that has slowly transformed the landscape into something extraordinary.
The difference is that at Cap de Creus, the landscape does not stop at the shoreline. It continues underwater. And when you dive here, you discover that what looks like a spectacular rocky peninsula from the surface is only the beginning of the story.
Cap de Creus occupies the easternmost end of the Iberian Peninsula, where the Pyrenees finally reach the Mediterranean. Geologically, it belongs to the axial zone of the Pyrenees, the part of the mountain range where some of its oldest rocks are exposed. The geological history of Cap de Creus goes back hundreds of millions of years, to the Paleozoic Era, when sediments accumulated in environments very different from those we know today.
Over geological time, those sediments were buried, compressed, heated and transformed. The result is the extraordinary variety of metamorphic rocks that characterises the peninsula: schists and phyllites, but also marble, quartzite, amphibolite and gneiss. There are also granodiorites and, in some areas, much younger basaltic rocks.
In other words, when you walk through Cap de Creus, you are not simply walking through a beautiful Mediterranean landscape. You are walking through geological history. The rocks record enormous forces that operated long before humans existed: sedimentation, burial, metamorphism, folding, faulting, mountain building and erosion.
The Variscan orogeny, hundreds of millions of years ago, profoundly transformed the ancient rocks. Much later, the Alpine orogeny contributed to the formation of the Pyrenees and produced further deformation in the Cap de Creus area.
The landscape we see today is therefore the result of several geological worlds superimposed upon one another.
And then came the wind.
Few places in the Mediterranean demonstrate the power of wind as clearly as Cap de Creus. The Tramuntana has shaped the peninsula for thousands upon thousands of years. Together with rain, waves, temperature changes and other erosive processes, it has sculpted the rocks into an almost surreal landscape of cliffs, ridges, gullies, coves and bizarrely shaped formations. Sometimes the landscape looks almost extraterrestrial. This is not surprising. The rocks are heavily fractured and folded, providing erosion with countless weaknesses to exploit. Water and wind penetrate cracks, enlarge them and gradually remove the material around them. The result is a coastline that seems to have been carved rather than simply eroded. And the sea continues the process. Every wave that strikes a cliff is participating in a geological experiment that began millions of years ago. The landscape is never finished. It is still being created.
For someone who dives, this peninsula reveals another dimension. The marine environment of Cap de Creus is extraordinarily diverse because the seabed is extraordinarily complex. There are rocky bottoms and soft sediments, shallow illuminated areas and dark deeper environments, sheltered coves and places exposed to strong currents, waves and the Tramuntana.
This enormous variety of habitats creates an equally extraordinary variety of life. And descending beneath the surface feels like entering another version of the same geological landscape. The rocks that dominate the coastline continue underwater as walls, ledges, caves, cracks and reefs. But now they are covered by living organisms. The Mediterranean suddenly becomes a three-dimensional forest.
One of the first things that can transform a dive is the sight of a meadow of Posidonia oceanica. Posidonia is not an alga but a marine flowering plant. Its underwater meadows are among the most important ecosystems in the Mediterranean. They provide shelter, food and nursery areas for numerous species, while their roots and rhizomes help stabilise the seabed. They also contribute to oxygen production and to the productivity of coastal ecosystems. Swimming above a Posidonia meadow can therefore feel deceptively peaceful. Beneath the apparently simple green leaves, there is an entire ecosystem. Small fish hide among the plants. Juveniles find refuge there. Invertebrates move between the leaves and the seabed. Predators patrol the edges. What looks like a meadow is actually a city. And every square metre can be full of life.
As you descend, the underwater landscape changes. Light gradually disappears, algae become less dominant and another community begins to emerge: the coraligenous habitat. The word "coralligenous" may sound as if it refers simply to coral, but the reality is much more complex. It is a highly structured Mediterranean community created largely by organisms such as coralline algae, which build and cement a complex three-dimensional habitat. It becomes a kind of underwater architecture. And among its most spectacular inhabitants are the red gorgonians. Their branches rise from the rocks like underwater trees.
They are animals, not plants, and their colonies create shelter and structure for numerous other organisms. Around them, the apparently bare rock becomes a living world of sponges, bryozoans, molluscs, crustaceans and fish. Then there is another extraordinary presence: red coral, Corallium rubrum.
Cap de Creus is particularly remarkable for the presence of this species, one of the Mediterranean organisms that has fascinated humans for centuries. But underwater, coral is not simply something beautiful to collect or admire. It is part of a complex ecosystem that has evolved over immense periods of time.
The rocky seabeds of Cap de Creus are home to an impressive variety of Mediterranean fish. You may encounter seabreams moving through the water, wrasses exploring the rocks, colourful salema feeding among the algae, or a grouper watching from the entrance of a cave. And then there are the species that seem to have been designed specifically for camouflage.
The red scorpionfish is a perfect example. It can sit almost motionless among the rocks, relying on camouflage rather than speed. Unless you know what you are looking for, you may swim past one without realising that a fish is watching you. The same is true of moray eels, which often remain hidden inside cracks and caves, revealing only their heads. And perhaps one of the most fascinating encounters for a diver is the common octopus. The octopus is not simply another animal on the seabed. It is an intelligence encounter. It can change colour and texture, manipulate objects, explore its environment and disappear into its surroundings with extraordinary efficiency.
In Cap de Creus, the rocky landscape provides exactly the kind of complex environment in which such an animal can thrive.
Not everything remarkable is large. Look carefully into the cracks and shadows and another world appears. Crustaceans occupy the crevices. Sea stars move slowly across the rocks. Sea urchins graze on algae. Polychaete worms live within the seabed. Sponges and bryozoans cover surfaces that, from a distance, appear lifeless.
The deeper you look, the more obvious the fundamental lesson of Cap de Creus becomes: absence of movement does not mean absence of life. Sometimes the richest places are the ones that initially appear empty.
One of the most remarkable geological features of Cap de Creus is not visible from the land at all. Off the peninsula lies a major submarine canyon that descends rapidly into the deep Mediterranean. The underwater topography is therefore not simply an extension of the coastline. It is a continuation of the geological drama. The cliffs we see above the water become walls and slopes below it, while the seabed suddenly opens into much deeper environments. These changes in depth and topography influence currents, sediments, nutrients and the distribution of marine organisms.
The sea here is not a uniform blue space. It is a landscape. And, like the terrestrial landscape, it has mountains, valleys, walls, forests, plains and canyons. Only we cannot see most of them from the surface.
There is another fascinating connection between the landscape above and the life below. The Tramuntana does not simply sculpt the rocks. It also influences the sea. Strong winds can mix surface waters with deeper waters, helping to bring nutrients into the marine ecosystem. Together with currents and the complex underwater topography, this contributes to the productivity of the waters around Cap de Creus. The same wind that makes the landscape look harsh can therefore help sustain the extraordinary richness beneath the waves. It is one of those beautiful contradictions of nature. A force capable of eroding the landscape can also help nourish the life that surrounds it.
The waters of Cap de Creus can also become a meeting point for animals that are not permanently associated with the seabed. The pelagic environment -the open water itself- is inhabited by plankton, jellyfish, small crustaceans and countless microscopic organisms that form the foundation of marine food webs. Among the larger inhabitants are sardines, anchovies and bonito. And, depending on the season and circumstances, the wider waters can also be visited by migratory species such as sea turtles and cetaceans. The Mediterranean may sometimes look like an empty blue surface. It isn't. It is one of the most densely interconnected ecosystems on Earth.
Perhaps this is why moving from Vesuvius to Cap de Creus feels so natural. Vesuvius tells the story of fire. Cap de Creus tells the story of time. One landscape was dramatically shaped by volcanic activity; the other preserves the scars of ancient mountain building, metamorphism and erosion. But both remind us of the same thing: the landscape is never merely scenery. It is a geological archive. At Vesuvius, you can look at a volcano and imagine the enormous forces that lie beneath it.
At Cap de Creus, you can look at a folded schist, a fractured cliff or a strangely sculpted rock and read the traces of forces that acted hundreds of millions of years ago. Then you put on a mask and descend beneath the surface. And suddenly the story changes again. The ancient rocks become the foundations of a living ecosystem. Posidonia grows above them. Gorgonians rise from them. Corals occupy their cracks. Octopuses disappear among them. Moray eels watch from their caves. Fish move through the labyrinth. And somewhere beyond the familiar coastline, the seabed plunges into a submarine canyon.
The geological and biological stories are not separate. They are the same story. Life builds upon geology. Geology creates habitats. The sea transforms rock. The rock shelters life. The wind changes the sea. The sea changes the coast. And everything is connected.
Standing at Cap de Creus, with the Mediterranean stretching towards the horizon, it is tempting to think of this place as the end of something. The easternmost point of Catalunya. The end of the Pyrenees. The place where the mountains meet the sea. But perhaps it is better understood as a beginning. A beginning of the Mediterranean. A beginning of an underwater world. A beginning of a geological journey that reaches far beyond what our eyes can see. And when you dive here, you realise that Cap de Creus is much larger than the peninsula that appears on a map. Its real landscape continues beneath the surface. Its rocks continue downward. Its ecosystems extend into darkness. Its canyon opens into the deep. And the Mediterranean keeps writing the next chapter.
After Vesuvius, Cap de Creus feels like a perfect reminder that nature does not need to choose between drama and beauty. Sometimes it offers both. Sometimes the most spectacular landscapes are made not by a single catastrophic event, but by millions of years of pressure, movement, erosion, wind and water. And sometimes, to see the whole story, you simply have to dive.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)