Book description
This first English-language guide describes the best mountain and
coastal walking near Tortosa, Southern Catalunya, Spain, in the Parc
Natural dels Ports, on the Cardó and Montsia massifs and along the
coast, all easily accessible from Barcelona, Valencia and Reus. 30
idyllic winter walking routes for walkers of all experience and
abilities are included through this area of remarkable natural beauty
and diversity. The immense limestone crags, ridges and pinnacles of the
Parc Natural dels Ports overlook the broad orange and olive groves
beside the River Ebro, giving a high drama to the landscape. Closer the
to the Mediterranean, there is good walking on the massifs of Cardó and
Montsia and a long-distance footpath along the coast. Mysteriously, the
region is practically unknown outside the region. The wild limestone
landscapes, from herb-covered hillsides to high pine forest, dotted with
Templar castles and picturesque hill villages, remain untouched by mass
tourism. All walks are graded for route-finding, scrambling required and
exposure, and non-technical, suitable for any experienced hillwalker,
and listed in a summary table at the back for easy selection, along with
a Catalan glossary of mountain terms and lots of other local
information. In 2002 Philip and Vivien Freakley moved to the French
Pyrenees to indulge a lifelong passion for mountains. They discovered
Southern Catalunya during an escape from a cold Pyrenean winter and have
spent the subsequent five winters exploring, translating Catalan
descriptions and knitting together apparently unrelated scraps of
footpath for this, their first Cicerone guidebook.
