With spring already well underway, a delightful stay awaits us in the south of the Costa Brava, where we’ll discover some of the most fascinating natural and cultural corners of the maritime La Selva region. We begin our getaway in Blanes, more specifically at the Sant Joan Castle, a Romanesque-style building that was built to keep a lookout for maritime pirate raids. Located at the top of the Sant Joan hill, the castle offers a panoramic view of Blanes.
In this town, we also can’t miss the route of hermitages, all built in strategic locations around Blanes to serve a double function, both religious and defensive at the same time. Along this route, we’ll get to know the hermitages of Esperança, Sant Francesc and Santa Bàrbara, among others, each of them with their own history, legends and curiosities.
Something else that characterises this region is its impressive Mediterranean gardens. In Blanes, we’ll find the Marimurtra botanical garden, a paradise of the plant world with over 4,000 species from five different continents. Very close by, in Lloret, there’s also the Santa Clotilde gardens, located on a cliff. A space full of nature, scents, colours and tranquillity with an unbeatable view of the Costa Brava.
Still in Lloret de Mar, we’ll visit a unique modernist cemetery, one of the prime examples of 19th-century funerary art in Catalonia that still preserves the traces of its Indiano legacy. On the seafront, we can also visit Can Garriga, one of the most important Indiano houses in the city, which is currently home to the Museum of the Sea. A place that will take us on a journey through the history of Lloret de Mar, from the time when ships were built on its beach to the voyages to America.
We’ll round off our getaway in Tossa de Mar, where we can take in the spectacular Vila Vella, an imposing walled city built between the 12th and 14th centuries as a defence against pirate raids. The interior of Vila Vella is a must-see, made up of winding picturesque streets and buildings with a lot of charm. At the highest point, we find the Tossa lighthouse, built on the old castle that overlooked the territory and which has now become a point of reference for people interested in gaining insight into the world of lighthouses.
A proposal brought to you in collaboration with
Descobrir magazine.
