Rural Spain Properties

AREA GUIDES >> RURAL PROPERTIES IN CATALUÑA

At a glance
photoCatalonia has it all: beaches and fishing villages on the Costa Brava or the Costa Daurada, medieval towns like Montblanc and picturesque villages in the Spanish Pyrenees.

Here you can hike in the mountains, swim in the Mediterranean or ski on probably the best slopes in Spain.

This Catalan-speaking region is composed of the provinces of Lleida, Girona, Barcelona province and Tarragona.

Properties
The Asturians have their casonas, the Galicians have their pazos whilst the Catalans have their masias. The masia is a Catalan country homes, built out of stone and usually packed full of character.

The region also offers great opportunities to own ski properties in the mountainous Pyrenees. These range from flats near the ski-lifts to character homes in surrounding villages.

Airports
The region is very well served by international airports in Barcelona, Tarragona (Reus) and Girona. These airports are well used by discount airlines and most parts of Europe can be reached easily.

Airports from surrounding regions can also be useful with Zaragoza serving the west side of Cataluña or the soon to be opened Castellón airport to the south.

Climate
Catalonia has a typical Mediterranean climate but with large variations in temperatures between the coast, inland and the mountains.

The coast has mild winters and very hot summers; inland the winters are cold and the summers are hot; and in the mountains temperatures fall below zero in the winter, with plenty of snow and rainfall, while the summers are cooler than the coast.

Historic value
The Romans first arrived on the Iberian Peninsula at Empúries, in Girona province, where excavations have uncovered several temples, floor mosaics and other ruins of a Greco-Roman town.

photoTarragona also has important Roman remains, including an amphitheatre, and just outside Tarragona city is a 2nd century aqueduct.

Catalonia also stands out historically for medieval towns like Montblanc, Besalú and Girona, for its superb monasteries and its Romanesque churches. One of its most impressive monasteries is at Montserrat, the current residence of Benedictine monks, nestling in the mountains, while the monasteries at Sant Joan de les Abadesses and Monestir de Santa Maria are more than 1,000 years old.

In 2000, UNESCO listed the Romanesque churches in the Vall de Boí, a narrow valley in the Pyrenees, as pure examples of Romanesque art in a virtually untouched setting.

Culture
The region’s fabulous capital, Barcelona, provides culture for all tastes.
It is renowned for the buildings created by Catalan modernist Antoni Gaudi, seven of which are UNESCO recognised.

The city also offers a steady flow of cultural festivals – from the Grec festival in the summer (around three months of theatre, music and dance), to the electronic music and multimedia art festival Sónar, the winter jazz festival and Mercè in September, which sees concerts, fireworks and partying around the region’s public holiday.

Beyond the capital, there are also plenty of festivals and celebrations – a Cava week, for instance, in the town Sant Sadurni d’Anoia.

The lively seaside town Sitges alone organises film, theatre, jazz and tango festivals.

At Figueres, there is one of Spain’s most-visited museums, the Teatro-Museo Dalí where Dalí is buried.

Food and drink
Good Mediterranean cooking is in abundance in Catalonia where chefs like Ferran Adrian (in his revolutionary restaurant El Bulli) have won the region a world culinary reputation.
 
Cod, both salted and fresh, is a recurring ingredient in traditional dishes, such as Xató de Sitges, a salad combining cod, tuna and anchovies with a vinaigrette dressing containing almonds.

Don’t miss pa amb tomaca, which is the simple sounding bread and tomato but is a great way to start the day.

Another other great catalan culinary delight are the calcots. They are mix between a leak and spring onion and are a cooked over a flaming grill.

Broad beans, peas and chickpeas are also frequently used in dishes like escudella, a stew of meat, vegetables and white beans, or butifarra amb mongetes, white sausage with beans.

Wine-lovers are spoilt for choice in Catalonia, a region which now has 12 denominaciones de origen to its name.

Quality whites are being produced in Terra Alta, Alella, Priorat, Garraf, Empordà and Costers del Segre. On the red wine front, improved methods have further boosted the reputations of Priorat, Penedès, Empordà, Costers del Segre, Terra Alta, Alella, Montsant, Pia de Bages, Conca de Barberá and Tarragona.

photoCava, which has been produced for more than a century following the French champagne method, is one of the most popular sparkling wines in the world. Improvements in cooling technologies have also led to a recent revolution in the quality of the region’s white wines, as have studies into the use of indigenous grape varieties such as Xarel.lo, Macabeo, Parellada and White Garnache and foreign varieties such as Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc.

Natural beauty
Catalonia’s tremendous National Park Aigüestortes in the Central Pyrenees is more than 14,000 hectares of forests, peaks and rocks, with more than 200 lakes and ponds on which you can spot beavers and otters.

The region also boasts almost a dozen nature reserves, one of the most striking being the Delta de l’Ebre Natural Park.

The Vall d’Aran (whose name means Valley of Valleys), in Lleida province, is a beautiful valley formed by the river Garona which flows to France as the Garonne. As well as a haven of meadows and forests, it also contains the ski resort Vielha. The other top resort in Lleida province is Baqueira-Beret, perhaps the most luxurious resort in Spain which draws the country’s rich and famous.