We knew, in coming to Begur, that we were still in the province of Girona. What we hadn't realized was that we were coming into the county ("comarca", county being the closest governmental parallel in the U.S.) of Baix ("low") Empordá. North of here is Alt ("high") Empordá, and sure enough, both comarcas were once just Empordá. The name derives from Empuries, the Greek (6th century b.c.), then Roman (2d century b.c.), settlements about thirty kilometers north of Begur. Both paleolithic and megalithic ruins found in Empordá predate those settlements, as do Iberian remains that are scattered around the area. This is old country.
The Visigoths inhabited the region after the fall of the Roman Empire, and the comarca of Empordá was briefly taken by the Moors in the 8th century (the farthest northern reach of their hold on the Iberian Peninsula). But the Franks under Charlemagne expelled them in short order, and divided the comarca into Alt and Baix, the latter being mostly swampland that was meant to serve as a no-man's-land between the Moors and the Franks.
But today we focused on later history, visiting some local towns with still-intact medieval structures. The most spectacular -- and least real -- of these was Peratallada, which is beautifully preserved but seems to have no contemporary life to it beyond small hotels, restaurants, and tourist shops. Still, we were there before the crowds and enjoyed wandering around. The name Peratallada derives from the concept of worked (tallada) stone (petra), and the town indeed sits on a huge rock hill. A defensive moat more than twenty feet deep was excavated around its perimeter, an amazing feat given the tools of the age, and the rock is the visible foundation for many of the structures in the town.
We enjoyed the back roads of Baix Empordá between Peratallada and Empuries, today a mostly agricultural region dotted with small towns, many with their medieval castle or church still
perched on top of the hill. We saw no swamps, nor vineyards (evidence of the Phylloxera rampage of the past century), but hundreds of hectares of apple orchards. We had intended to visit the museum at the Empuries ruins -- we visited the latter but not their museum on a previous trip -- but were distracted by the beauty of the day and the glory of the Mediterranean Sea at our feet. So we left the museum for another time, soaked up some sun at L'Estrada, and then headed back to Begur for a second lunch at Can Nasi. (Jerome had calamari stuffed with a vegetable coulis, and I had a delicious veal in gravy.) I guess we had had enough history for one day.
Tomorrow we will bid farewell to Begur and Baix Empordá and, temporarily, to Spain, and will head north to spend four days in southern France, in order to view the Pyrenees from their northern side and to explore Languedoc before heading west to Asturias and the beautiful northern coast there.
Photos are at https://goo.gl/photos/4ZWxKDTUHa9nNSpL6
