Cala Murtra, near the road that goes to Cala Montjoi, in Roses, Cap de Creus, Girona, Costa Brava

Cala Murtra is one of the most pristine coves on the Costa Brava. Its geographical location is privileged, and there is no doubt that for those who love quiet coves, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

This panel in the side of the road indicates the place we have to park to start the descent by foot to Cala Murtra, in Roses, Cap de Creus, Costa Brava

The cove is located about 7 kms from the center of Roses, taking the road of Cala Montjoi, completely paved. At this point you must be vigilant, on the right side of the road, indicating the panel down to the cove. Park here, on an unpaved space on the edge, and begin the descent through a path not well conditioned nor well marked, truth be told, without much slope or danger and that in 15 or 20 minutes will take you to the cove, which you will see as a visual reference along you descend, when you contemplate the brilliant blue waters under the clear blue sky and beyond the green of the pines that surround this natural setting of Cap de Creus Natural Park.

From the road we start the descent towards Cala Murtra, in Roses, Cap de Creus, Girona, Costa Brava

Cala Murtra has no trace of human influence, there is no building around and has not even services dedicated to bathers (not even bins, so you are requested to carry your litter generated during your stay in the cove). Cala Murtra is just that: a creek, and human presence even in summer time is usually minimal.

Desceding to Cala Murtra, in Roses, Costa Brava, through the path we discover this ancient villa ruins

The cove surface is not sand, but pebbles. It will certainly difficult to walk barefoot. The surface under water, almost of transparent and turquoise colors, combines sand with rocks at a time, showing the diver underwater vision alive. Moreover, Cala Murtra is surrounded by cliffs and is oriented slightly north (you can see in the distance Cap Norfeu), so that in the days of Tramuntana wind blowing it doesn’t offer much protection. On one side lies the Cape Trencat, easily distinguished by its red color tones on the rocks, and the other the Cape Blanc, as its name (white) indicates lighter colors. Near Cala Murtra there are two more spectacular coves: Cala Lledó, south, and Cala Rostella, the next cove north of Cala Murtra. In any case the scenic beauty of the cove, surrounded on all sides by pine forests, is ravishing.

When we finish descending we verify all the beauty and pureness of Cala Murtra

Cala Murtra, horseshoe shaped, is about 150 meters long and 10 meters wide. You may be facing the creek, which allows the practice of nudism, find some moored boats: it is certainly one of the most favorite beaches for boats for ease of mooring. However, indicated buoys separate bather areas and it is prohibited by any engine boat to surpass them.

Since 2009 this cove is awarded with the European EMAS environmental certification and the ISO 14001 international environmental management, so that the quality of its waters are secured for the enjoyment of visitors.

Monastery Sant Pere de Rodes, in Port de la Selva, Girona, Costa Brava, Spain

The first document news we have from Monastery of Sant Pere de Roda come from ninth century. At that time it was just a monastic cell (something like a small chapel), although it is true that at the base of the building are still older foundations, probably Roman or early Christian.

Central nave central of Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes

This cell was dependent on Sant Esteve de Banyoles church until finally gained independence in the year 947. The first abbot was Hildesind, son of a nobleman named Tasi. In 1022 it was consecrated as a basilica. The most meritorious architectural part of the monastery was built from 1100. They erected a cover, the cloister and later another new portal, made by Mestre of Cabestany, some parts of which are preserved in the Museum of Peralada and Museum Marés of Barcelona.

Capital of one of columns in Sant Pere de Rodes Monastery, now in Museum of Peralada

In any case the religious life in the monastery was very active until the end of the fourteenth century. The Black Death pandemic (which killed 24 monks), lack of donations and the fear of piracy (forcing to fortify the site) led the community to a decline, exacerbated by different expolios mainly due to armed conflicts. Thus, in 1693, the French plunder the Rodes Bible, which is kept in the National Library of France.

The monastery consists of three naves, the lateral rather narrow, with three apses and a cruise.

Inside the bell tower in Monastery Sant Pere de Rodes

The set was declared National Historic Monument in 1930 and it is now open to the public on a regular schedule so it can be visited by all those interested in this key building in the history of the Ampurdán.

Cloister of Monastery Sant Pere de Rodes, in the middle of Cap de Creus, Costa Brava, Spain

Dolmen Creu d'en Cobertella, Roses, Girona, Costa Brava, Spain

Dolmen Creu d’en Cobertella is a tomb built of granite slabs between 3000 and 2700 BC, in the Neolithic. It is therefore a funerary enclosure in which, through a corridor that now no longer exists (but whose marks in the rocky base of the monument show their past existence) human bodies were buried inside.

The first written evidence of the presence of this monument comes from thirteenth century, when it was known as ‘petra coperta’ (covered rock). As villagers then were not aware of the importance of this archaeological evidence it was used as goat pen attached to the farmhouse attached to it, now in ruins.

Dolmen de la Creu d'en Cobertella is located in a megalithic guided foot trail, in Roses, Cape of Creus, Costa Brava

Although studies of this monument began early twentieth century, it was not until twentieth mid-century when the first excavations were made: in addition to the aforementioned brands of the corridor today disappeared, remains of bones, pottery, coins of the Roman empire and other funeral items were found.

Dolmen dimensions are impressive, especially considering the lack of means with which the inhabitants of this land had to lift weights like these. In total it is formed by seven slabs granite gneiss. The stone used as roof measures 4.15 meters by 5.7. Its thickness is 40 cm. The top of the enclosure reaches 2.45 meters and the plant is 3.90 by 3.15 meters. Inside the dolmen, not opened to the public, we would see that the interior walls contain small spaces were funeral rituals containers were were placed.

Entrance to the dolmen Creu d'en Cobertella, in Roses, Cape of Creus

Getting to the dolmen Creu d’en Cobertella is relatively easy. Starting from the center of Roses village take the Cala Montjoi route, that takes us to the beautiful landscapes of Cap de Creus. In one of the curves, just 1.5kms, on the left, you’ll see an indication of the walking path leading to the dolmen, that you’ll reach after 500 mts (park beside the route). This same walking path leads us also to other dolmens in the surrounding as Casa Cremada and Llit de la Generala or Turo de l’Home.

Platja del Moll Grec, l'Escala, Girona, Costa Brava

And this is because, as the name suggests, on the right side of the beach are, still standing, part of the Greek harbor from I century BC, a stone wall built by the ancient inhabitants to protect the boats on the beach from the waves. This wall is fully accessible and visitors can walk through it. The environment is really lovely, as this beach is next to the coastal path that serves as a boardwalk that crosses the coves of l’Escala, with a pine forest just behind the beach, and typical dune formations that forms in a natural way in this area.

Old greek dock stone in Playa del Moll Grec, in l'Escala, Costa Brava, Spain

The Moll Grec beach is 400 meters long, 40 meters wide and is composed of fine sand. Beside the creek you will also find small islands which can be reached by swimming, given the small distance between the shore and these rocky outcrops. Often many fishermen take advantage of this great location to throw their fishing rods.

Little rocks in Platja del Moll Grec, an excellent place for children to explore and play

This beach, despite its unspoiled nature, offers all types of services you can expect from a great one. It has been awarded with the blue flag quality. Indeed, Moll Grec beach has showers, bins, snack bar, hire pedalos, kiosk, sunbed and a rescue and surveillance team in the summer months.

Playa del Moll Grec offers excellent facilities to the bathers

As mentioned, the beach is opposite the center of Sant Martí d’Empúries, which is about 200 meters north, and that was the first greek historical center, from ancient Phocaea, before the people who occupied the ruins of Empúries (which are in turn just a few meters south from our beach). Sant Martí d’Empúries is today a charming medieval village that has excellent restaurants, perfect to complement a great day at the beach and that are not far from it.

Sant Martí d'Empúries medieval village, just a few meters from Moll Grec beach

And just few meters south of Moll Grec you’ll find more beautiful beaches as the Portitxol, 400 meters far away, once you pass another beautiful one: the Muscleres Beach.

Therefore the Moll Grec beach is an excellent opportunity for a fun day with family,  a perfect place to enjoy not only a coastline with clear water of high quality, but also a cultural and natural environment of great importance in the history of the Ampurdan.

Night image of Platja del Moll Grec, with shape of the old harbor wall and, backwards, l'Escala

Walter Benjamin Memorial, in Portbou, Girona, Costa Brava

The monument is called ‘Passages’, referring to unfinished Benjamin’s last work: Passagen Werk, begun in 1927, a collection of citations and fragments that showed the different types of human transient to awake them from their own conscious absorption.

Portbou village remembers through this plaque the place where Walter Benjamin died, in the ancient Hostal Francia

The monument consists of a tunnel formed by steel plates with an oxidized red color, which adapts to the rocky environment that surrounds Portbou landscape, shaped by the north wind, the Tramuntana, which blows sometimes furiously.

As long as the visitor goes down through the tunnel he feels the effect of the solitude of their steps until the moment when he arrives to the end light, striking a lookout towards the Bay of Portbou.

In the interior of the cemetery, a few meters away of the tunnel, it is possible to visit the ancient Walter Benjamin tomb, from the time he died until 1945, when the body was buried in a common grave.

Walter Benjamin (Berlin 1892 - Portbou 1940)

Benjamin wants to flee to the United States, and, after passing through Lourdes, he arrives to Marseilles in September and meets his friends Hannah Arendt, Hans Arthur Koestler and Hans Fittko. It was no longer possible to ship from Marseille to America, so Hans gives Benjamin his sister address in Portvendres, France, to help him. The plan was to reach the new continent by boat starting from Portugal. Benjamin takes the advice and heads there by train, accompanied by the photographer Henny Gurland (who years later, in America, married Erich Fromm) and her son, Joseph.

Scenic view ot the bay where Portbou lays, in Girona, Costa Brava

Portvendres contact, Lisa Fittko, is responsible for lead from Banyuls to Portbou by a difficult path, very steep and full of stones that Benjamin, sick at heart, can only make after breaks of 10 minutes. They finally reach the top of the last mountain, where Portbou sighted. According Fittko:

Finally we reached the top. I had moved on and I stopped to look. What I saw struck me as the result of a sort of hallucination: in an unexpected way I saw the sea back again, in a dark blue color. Portbou was down there.

From there on they will descent to the village. Fittko leaves him and returns to the starting point, where in later years she will continue to guide many other exiles. Benjamin and his two companions arrive to the police station in Portbou, a border village with evident traces of a Civil War bombings which had ended only a year earlier. But Spanish police denied him entry into Spanish territory and announce that they will be handed over to French authorities.

Walter Benjamin Memorial tomb, in Portbou cemetery

Controlled by police in the Hostal Francia, today closed, Benjamin spent his night in room number 3. After making a series of phone calls, he took a strong dose of morphine (which he got in Marseille), and his body is found the next morning on the bed. He died at 48 years.

Walter Benjamin spent just over 12 hours of his life in the village of Portbou, but the mark it has left in it still remains indelible. In our next article we will discover how.

Walter Benjamin Memorial, a Karavan monument in Portbou, just in face of the village cliffs

Portlligat Bay from the Casa Museo Dalí roof, in Cadaqués

Portlligat (also written as Port Lligat) also houses one of the Dalí Museums. This was Dalí home since he bought it in the 30′s, when he returned from New York. In fact he acquired several fishermen houses and, with the help of some architects, he managed to fusion them through new walls and passages. A visit to this museum gives a good account of the so special configuration that has this original dalinian place. Before becoming a museum, while Dalí and his wife Gala lived in the house, great and famous stars as Federico Garcia Lorca, Picasso or Walt Disney visited it. The genial painter was always very fond of this landscape, so much that on several occasions he stated that it was “the most beautiful in the world”.

Portlligat, in the middle of Cap de Creus, is a beautiful bay surrounded by woods

The island is about a mile long from Portlligat shore and is a very typical well recognised landscape of this bay. It was for the fishermen in the area of major importance for protection as a shelter against storms. Currently on the island you’ll only find some vegetation and some trees, although we know that in the past, as in Portlligat, there were some houses with residents, including the village postman, so that it was also known as Mail Island.

Panoramic view of Portlligat, shot from its northern side

If you to go swimming to reach the island from the creek you’ll find that the distance is too long, but if you start from the south of the bay, which we access through the coastal path to Ses Boquelles and Playa d’en Ton, the distance is shortened to only 60 meters.

Boats in Portlligat, Cadaqués, Costa Brava, Spain

Portlligat is part of Cadaqués, so that in fact it’s not a village itself. It is formed by a few white houses of former fishermen (most of them residential homes now) and half a dozen traditional paved streets, some with ladders. It will draw your attention the spatial arrangement of these homes and the fact that the chimneys are topped by a pyramid, an old technique to prevent the north wind, the Tramuntana, to snuff out their fireplaces.

Portlligat beach is frequently a place for fishermen boats to rest

Portlligat beach, on the other hand, is about 80 meters long and barely 10 meters wide. Since the creek is so small and there are many boats, the truth is that Portlligat is not one of the most attractive coves to bath, compared with others in Cadaqués that even have blue flag. So, it has bins, but no showers. Now the disabled access is fully conditioned, especially considering those who visit the museum.

Dalí Museum entrance, located in the right side of Portlligat Bay, and very visited by tourists

Another point of interest is the Ermita de Sant Baldiri (church), from 1702, which is at the top of the creek, near the cemetery.

Marine cemetery in l'Escala, Girona, Costa Brava, Spain

L’Escala is a well-known village on the Costa Brava known for its production of good quality anchovies. In 1835 this cemetery was founded to be the burial place of the villagers. From 1970 burials were stopped because of the ban of doing it in urban centers.

L'Escala cemetery niches shine with a dazzling white colour under the sun

However, from that time the life of this neoclassical jewel did just begin as a monument, because, also to prevent it from real estate speculation, the neighborhood movement succeeded in pressuring the authorities to be declared historic-artistic monument, as it was done in 1974.

The cemetery is composed of an atrium at the entrance, a majority of niche area topped with lime coated tympani, which gives them a dazzling white color, typical of many Mediterranean landscapes and, in addition, 4 pantheons. The chapel belongs to the Maranges family pantheon.

Photographer Josep Esquirol headstone, in l'Escala cemetery

The marine cemetery of L’Escala hosts the remains of two great catalan. The first is Caterina Albert, born in this village and who, under the male pseudonym Victor Català, wrote great works of XIXth century Catalan literature, the most important of which was Solitude. We also found Josep Esquirol tomb, the l’Escala photographer who took the first pictures from the archaeological site of Empúries, and whose photographic collection is preserved in the villa.

Caterina Albert tomb (writer known as Victor Català)

Portitxol Beach, in l'Escala, Girona, Costa Brava, Spain

You can access to the Portitxol beach from the Paseo de las Dunas, a coastal path (a natural boulevard) very well conditioned that runs about 2.5 km along from L’Escala center to the nearby medieval village of Sant Martí d’Empúries, in the north. Along this path we will find an interesting succession of coves and also a set of coastal dunes that shape the landscape of some of these natural beaches in the Costa Brava center. This dunes also contribute to keep the typical flora and fauna in the area.

Scenic view of Platja del Portitxol, in l'Escala

To the right of the beach, overlooking the sea, we find a series of steep rock ledges. They are called the Pedrigolet and Les Coves, beyond which lies the beach Playa del Rec, in front of a forest which has the same name. Because of its peculiar morphology and shallow rocky, it offers an excellent opportunity to explore its crystal clear underwater world, just even snorkeling.

Right side of Portitxol Beach offers to bathers curious rock ledges

To the left of the beach, with the incomparable view offered by the landscape of Cap de Creus and the bay of Roses, we find the rock ledges of the Muscleres Petites, belonging to the beach of the same name, another of the beautiful beaches spread along the Paseo de les Dunes. Just opposite you’ll find one of the entrance door of the Greek ruins of Ampúrias.

Aerial view of Portitxol Beach, that shows its location next to Ampurias Archeological Ruins

In front of Portitxol beach we can see the historical building that today is the Hostal Empúries. Of clean, white facade, it was built in 1908 by the Paradis family, from L’Escala, to host the archaeologists team who, under the command of Puig i Cadafalch, worked on the excavations of the above mentioned ruins. The building has from there remained here, looking always Portitxol beach throughout the 20th century until, in 2003, it was reformed and today is a very nice spa hotel of great ecological interest, adding a new attraction to this natural zone.

Nice sunset in Portitxol Beach and Hostal Empúries, l'Escala, Costa Brava, Spain

Playa Rubina, in Empuriabrava, Girona, Costa Brava

Rubina Beach, in Empuriava, has a length of 1800 meters and offers many services. The beach comes alive especially during the summer. The south end side of the beach coincides with the exit gateway in the Empuriabrava water channels. You can walk to the end of this dock and see the departure of many yachts and pleasure boats, almost continuously in summer.

South side of Platja de la Rubina, boats from Empuriabrava channels start their sea journey

Next to that side of the beach there is also the Empuriabrava Municipal School of Sailing. In this area, young and not so young make their first steps in learning the mastery of sailing boats (children enjoy Optimist ships).

Sailboats on Rubina Beach

We go further to the north and we find more attractions on Platja Rubina. We encounter dunes, protected and properly marked by some wood sticks: they form a small ecosystem integrated into the natural marshland region of l’Empordà. These dunes have a protective effect on the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà Park and surroundings, because they allow the conservation of specific flora and fauna adapted to this environment. Please respect the dunes, entrance is not allowed (not even the dogs!).

Informatino panel about protected dunes on Rubina Beach, Empuriabrava, Girona, Costa Brava, Spain

But that’s not all in Platja Rubina. Finally, a small beach area which is marked allows swimming with dogs and another zone allows kitesurfing, all with the Cape of Creus mountains background in the north direction, clearly visible. You can move along the beach through a well-conditioned flat pedestrian way behind the dunes (they are not so high), so you wan’t have to step over the sand if you just want to walk by the beach.

Platja Rubina has all the facilities that a large and important beach offers in Costa Brava, as snack bar (chiringuito), lifeguard services, toilets, showers, sun beds, rescue boat, etc. This beach is wide and familiar with many activities to do, and therefore and excellent place for a great summer day to spend together.

Platja Rubina offers excellents facilities to the bathers, as snack bars or bike parking