Costa Brava
Costa Brava is the denomination that receives the coastal sector more northern of Catalonia, from the state border francoespañola until the mouth of the river Tordera, that is to say from the population of Portbou to the one of Blanes.
It corresponds to the maritime façade of the Empordà and of Selva, and in the interior has an important point of reference in the city of Girona. It treats of an extremely articulated coast, of rugged relief, owing to a series of mountainous systems that fall abruptly on the sea forming rocky cliffs that give him an appearance adusto and wild –of here his name–, with calas and beaches hid between the salient, where the pines arrive until the same bank. However, there are some sectors –like the gulf of Roses or the sandy areas of Pals– with extensive beaches of sand that break the unit and confer variety to the landscape.
The softness of the climate, the transparency of the waters, the luminosidad of the sky despejado by the tramontana and the charm of the sailor populations, that traditionally had lived of the fishing, the navigation of cabotaje and of height, and also of the exploitation of the coral, attracted visitors from ends of the 19th century and soon imposed the name of Costa Brava, contrived by the journalist Ferran Agulló.
Writers, musicians, artists of the country and foreigners have admired the Costa Brava and have given it to know to the world. We quote only some names: Picasso, Salvador Dalí, that converted Cadaqués in international artistic centre; Marc Chagall, that in the years thirty of the past century was long seasons in Tossa, or the Catalan writer Josep Pla, in the one who has had a chronicler of exception.