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The Empordà of Teresa Artigas

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I love the Empordà. I love it from North to South and from East to West, and from all intermediate angles. I love it for its friendly plain, soft as a blanket woven in harmonious colours. I love it for its coastline, broken by the geologic movements of the Earth, its castles and monasteries that tell us their fascinating history, its wild hills leading up to the Garrotxa and the Pyrenees, its poetic legends, and its lively and spirited people.

I love strolling through medieval villages and towns in winter, when the hubbub of summer has gone and you can hear the sound of your steps on the pavement. I love walking along the coastal trail to Fosca, Castell, Aigua-xellida, and s’Alguer, because these coves still allow you to dream that all is well. I love L’Escala when the North or Levant wind is blowing and the waves break furiously on the Greek pier of Empúries or on the rocks of Portitxol beach. I love to see Cap Norfeu when I’m driving on the road from Roses to the coves of Montjoi and Joncols: this rocky mass reaches out to sea in agony, yet the legend of Orpheus gave it life: Shipwrecked Orpheus is without hope, protected by the rock of Gat but too far from shore; he finds solace in the view of the snow-covered Canigó. So inspired, he composes beautiful melodies on his lyre. The coastline reaches out to listen and reaches the rock of Gat. Thus Orpheus can reach land. I love the Cap de Creus because it is wild and rough, beaten by the winds and full of secrets, an extreme landscape that makes us think both of immensity and smallness.

I love to see the plain of the Baix Empordà from the Foixà, and that of the Alt Empordà from Lladó, landscapes that could have been the work of a Renaissance painter. I love the autumn skies over the Alt Empordà and the burning sunsets that herald storms in Perelada or Garriguella. I love the Albera where the plains end and and show us the remains of a domesticated and then abandoned land where olive trees and vines survive. The vines are golden in autumn, just before the leaves abandon their stalks in Capmany, Cantallops, Agullana, Espolla, Rabós, and Vilamaniscle, and the olive trees carry silver leaves and green fruit.

I love the silence of the Albera, as yet they have not built the gigantic windmills of progress here, and the quiet of the Romanesque monastery of Sant Quirze de Colera and the greatness of Sant Pere de Rodes. This is the Empordà I love. The other one that develops and urbanizes, that attracts the masses and destroys everything or turns it trite, that I do not speak of. // TERESA ARTIGAS 




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