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AN 18TH CENTURY VILLAGE HOUSE IN BATEA, TARRAGONA PROVINCE, CATALONIA, SPAIN |
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It's likely you've driven down from Barcelona or across from Tarragona. The journey has taken you over the River Ebro and into its fertile valley of vines, olives and almonds. The roads are good and relatively quiet. After the town of Gandesa, you climb up from the valley floor to a wooded plateau that rolls away to the border of Catalonia and the Aragon. Then finally, through the vineyards, you see the medieval hilltop village of Batea. You park in the church square and walk past the baroque basilica of Sant Miquel. To your left, a monument commemorates ‘all the sons of Batea who died in the Civil War, 1936-39’. Above you, Casa Tertulia, with its distinctive attic window, peeks over a neighbour’s roof like a one-eyed spy in a flat cap. A flight of weathered stone steps leads you up to a passageway and the front door of the house. You're here. It's a renovated 18th century sandstone village house, owned by the Melbourne-based writer and documentary maker, David Leach. djr.leach@bigpond.com He oversaw its restoration in 2004 and lived here in 2005 while organising a memorial to British volunteers in the International Brigades who died locally during the Spanish Civil War. The house is now available for holiday rental for the first time from the start of June to the end of October. For a foretaste of Casa Tertulia, go to the Gallery and click on each 'thumbnail'. |
