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AN 18TH CENTURY VILLAGE HOUSE IN BATEA,TARRAGONA PROVINCE, CATALONIA, SPAIN |
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 Drive out of Batea eastwards on the road to Gandesa and you’re confronted by one of the most dramatic vistas in Catalonia. The plateau drops away suddenly to the rich, red earth of the Ebro Valley. Beyond the vineyards and olive and almond groves stand the bleak limestone crags of the Sierra Pandols. Batea and surrounds are in a ‘comarca’ - or county - called the ‘Terra Alta’. It’s Catalan for ‘High Land’. And it’s a very high and imposing land indeed. In the middle ages, Knights Templars built impregnable castles on mountain summits. Pilgrims, en route across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, wove their way along precipitous mountain passes. And in more recent times, the army of the Spanish Republic and the rebel forces of General Franco fought the last great battle of the Civil War among the sheer peaks of the Sierra Pandols and the Sierra Caballs. Today the Terra Alta presents an altogether more tranquil prospect. Where men once fought and died, walkers and mountain bikers now roam along the ‘green routes’. Art enthusiasts drive between mountain ranges to the village of Horta Sant Joan, where Picasso spent a year of his adolescence. (It’s said that Cubism was inspired by the giant stone blocks he saw in a local quarry.) But in truth most visitors to the Terra Alta - and thankfully it is yet to be inundated - come here to relax. And to eat well and enjoy good wine. For a brief tour of the region, visit the Gallery and click on the ‘thumbnails’. |
