Between the mountains and the sea (1998) [i]
Between the mountains and the sea, between the snowy Peaks of the high Pyrenees and the flesh pots of the Costa Brava lies La Garrotxa (pronounced “Garrotcha”).
Forty thousand years ago, modern man lived here – traces of his take-away suppers have been found in caves in Serinya. Two thousand years ago, there was a thriving trading city on the coast at Empurias – although its ruins are now among the least impressive of the classical sites dotted around the shores of the Mediterranean – a kind of Verulanium on sea with a couple of cypress trees thrown in.
Civilisation came to the lush forests, limestone hills and extinct volcanoes of La Garrotxa itself a thousand years ago. From the tenth century, when much of the Iberian Peninsula was still controlled by the Moors, this corner of north eastern Spain was ruled by the Christian counts of Besalu. Under their patronage, the area saw the first flowering of Catalan culture. The years since Franco’s death have seen a dramatic resurgence of all things Catalan. The Catalan language can be seen and heard everywhere. It has similarities to both French and Spanish, much like the old langue d’Oc which was spoken over much of southern France . When Orwell was fighting as a member of the International Brigades during the Civil War, he wrote that many of his comrades spoke Catalan. Now most road signs and many adverts are in Catalan.
Part of this reawakening has been a greater interest in Catalan history, and in particular the careful and sensitive restoration of many of the hundred or so Romanesque churches which are the most visible reminder of the times of the Counts of Besalu. A few of them are large town churches, like the ruined Santa Maria in Besalu, but most are simple, humble buildings where small rural communities worshipped. The only way of visiting many these country churches is on foot.
Maia de Montcal, a sleepy village a few kilometres from Besalu, had a population of only 325 in 1991. Even so, it has a sizable village church and there are seven other Romanesque churches within easy walking distance. There are few tarmacked roads, and these churches can only be reached along dirt tracks, which pass through fields of sunflowers and sweet corn. Herds of sheep graze on the stubble. Fennel, rosemary, marjoram and oregano grow by the wayside.
One of the prettiest of the churches near Maia is L’ermita de Santa Magdalena – a hermitage built in the 12th century on one of the last hills before the coastal plain. It is approached via a track which winds upwards through pine woods. The only building nearby is a white-washed farm house with a well tended country garden. As I approached, a dog barked, and cats chased each other round the garden, but the farm seemed deserted until a green shutter moved and an old woman came down with a key to the hermitage. It is plain and undecorated, with grey walls of roughly hewn rock and a simple stone altar. The only adornment is a crouching beast, carved from stone – perhaps a monkey or some unknown mythical figure. Narrow steps lead up inside the nave, through a trap door onto the roof. There is a small belfry above the roof of rounded clay tiles, ranging in colour from cream to rust. The view stretches as far as the shores of the Mediterranean and the holiday resorts around Roses.
The churches of Santa Maria de Palera and Sant Sepulchre de Palera are a few kilometres to the west. The fields that the villagers of Palera once tilled have been repossessed by nature and the two churches are now surrounded by woodland. The garden of the house next to Santa Maria has fig trees and large oranges nestling against the wall of the apse. Looking from the west door of Santa Maria , there is no sign of human habitation, just woodland which stretches to the blue-grey outlines of distant hills. Sant Sepulchre is a larger church with three perfect semi-circular apses at the eastern end of the nave. Outside, there is a simple calvary made out of the cross shaped trunk of a dead olive tree with circles of barbed wire representing a crown of thorns.
A more energetic walk, which takes in five Romanesque churches in the mountains near the French border, starts at Sadernes – once a village, but now just a church, a camp site and a surprisingly good restaurant. The track follows a deep limestone gorge, with a rocky river bed and cool, shady pools, but then climbs steeply through woods of oak, ilex, box and sweet chestnut, up the side of the valley to Sant Feliu de Riu. This church was built in the twelfth century to serve a parish, but is now isolated on a spur, high above the valley bottom, surrounded by dense woodland, with no other building for two kilometres. It is typical of these Catalan churches, with a small nave, a semi-circular apse, four small slit-like unglazed windows and a flat, almost two dimensional belfry. The only door is decorated and strengthened with forged iron work dating back to medieval times.
Three or four kilometres further up the mountain is La Mare de Deu de los Agulles (“the Mother of God of the Needles”). This twelfth century church is in a clearing in the forest, approached down a narrow path, no more than two feet wide. There is a ruined farm house nearby, but no other sign of settlement within sight. White, orange and yellow butterflies flutter among the wild mint and marjoram. Eagles sore overhead. Once again, the small nave is lit by narrow, unglazed windows. A colony of bats hang in the roof of the apse. They wafted gently in the breeze caused by the opening of the door and fidgeted when approached. The church is named after the old custom of women sticking needles into the image of the Virgin Mary.
There is a path from La Mare de Deu, straight down into the valley at Santa Aniol d’Aguja and so back to Sadernes, but it is also possible to walk on over the Coll de Bessegoda. This was once a route frequented by smugglers and volunteers coming to join the International Brigades, but now it is deserted. Once I left the Sadernes valley, I saw just two other walkers, a pair of Belgians who had hiked over the mountain from France that morning.
Beyond Bessegoda the track leads on to Sant Julia de Ribelles, another isolated church, which was consecrated by Bishop Gotmar of Girona on February 18th, 947. It is slightly larger, with a side nave and paint fragments dating from the 11th century. Outside, not yet overgrown by the brambles which are reclaiming the churchyard, there is a single metal memorial, recording the death of Pedro Catenys Juanola, who died aged 34 on July 28th 1913, leaving a wife and three children aged six, four and two. He may have been one of the last parishioners to worship at Sant Julia – until restoration in 1986, farm animals were kept in the church. From Sant Julia there is a narrow, precipitous, but well marked footpath down the limestone cliffs to Santa Aniol d’Aguja, once another thriving community, but now nothing more than a church, a ruined farm house, a dramatic waterfall and the tents of rock climbers.
(I stayed at Can Coromines, 17851 Maia de Montcal which has four apartments and a camp site. ( www.cancoromines.com )