Sea and mountain hand in hand

Hav­ing been his­tor­i­cally dis­tanced from in­land routes, the sea­side town of Tossa has al­ways been rel­a­tively iso­lated from major con­flicts and, de­spite being the tar­get of pi­rate at­tacks, main­tained an in­de­pen­dent, wild char­ac­ter.

In the early 20th cen­tury, the town at­tracted ex­iled painters and artists, some of whom were flee­ing Nazism, who spawned a golden age that ended with Franco’s fas­cist up­ris­ing. But this cu­ri­ous his­tory has left its mark and given the town a spe­cial ap­peal that can be dis­cov­ered in the hid­den coves, on Gran beach, strolling through the Old Town or climb­ing to­wards Sant Grau church.

Tossa is roar­ing and fu­ri­ous, and can be dis­cov­ered from the Old Town, and its three tow­ers, all with cu­ri­ous names: Jonàs, which guards the bay; Les Hores, lo­cated at the en­trance to the court­yard; and Es Codolar, on the beach of the same name. These tow­ers pre­serve the essences of a by­gone era when Gran beach was a port that hosted boats and the rocks marked by the melan­choly green of the cork oaks com­prised a dif­fer­ent world.

Al­though Tossa is a cen­tre of leisure and cul­ture today, a visit to the mu­nic­i­pal mu­seum re­veals a story of past times, when his­tor­i­cal fig­ures such as Olga Sacharoff, Marc Cha­gall, André Mas­son, Jean Met­zinger and Georges Kars left im­mor­tal works that all vis­i­tors can still enjoy today.

From here we can make our way to the light­house, the last to be built on the Costa Brava – it cel­e­brated its cen­te­nary four years ago – today con­verted into a Mediter­ranean Light­house In­for­ma­tion Cen­tre, of­fer­ing lovers of Ro­manesque build­ings a com­plete guide to the use and life of those in charge of these mar­itime tow­ers.

De­scend­ing from the Old Town – after ac­com­pa­ny­ing Ava Gard­ner try­ing to find the Wan­der­ing Dutch­man – we dis­cover one of the town’s most pop­u­lated and least known neigh­bour­hoods, Sa Roqueta, an old fish­ing en­clave, and from here go to the Roman villa of Els Ametllers, one of the best pre­served on the Cata­lan coast.

For those who like to walk, the tourist of­fice has sev­eral routes: one that goes to Codolar, one that heads down to Cala Pola, one that brings vis­i­tors to the Ruixons tor­rents, one that goes up to Sant Grau church, one into El Puig de ses Cadi­retes, or longer and more chal­leng­ing ones, in­clud­ing one that crosses L’Ar­denya, an­other that passes through Terra Negra or one that con­nects Tossa to Lloret through the Sa Palom­era pass.

out & about