Josep Pla’s Empordà: A Land to Be Lived
If there’s anyone who has taught us to see the Empordà with new eyes, it’s Josep Pla. His writing—clear and direct—feels like a conversation in the open air, under a vine-covered pergola, with a glass of white wine in hand. Thanks to him, this land of sea and mountains, of tramontana winds and calm days, of farmers and sailors, comes to life in every word.
The Empordà is a place where the light fills everything. The colors are soft and crisp, as if the tramontana wind had swept away every impurity. “It’s a landscape made to human scale,” Pla once said, and he was right. Nothing here is excessive: the mountains are not overwhelming, the plains stretch wide without feeling endless, and the sea shifts from serene to untamed in the blink of an eye.
Reading Pla is almost like smelling the freshly harvested wheat fields, seeing the vineyards thirsty under the summer sun, and feeling the salt of the sea on your skin as you wander along the hidden coves of the Costa Brava. But more than anything, it’s about knowing its people—true Empordà locals, stubborn and free-spirited, with that mix of irony and caution that only comes from living between land and sea.
For Pla, the Empordà was not just a place—it was a way of being. Here, the smallest things hold great value: a patiently made allioli, the famous anchovies of L’Escala, a slow-cooked rice dish, or the freshest catch of the day. Gastronomy is not just food; it’s culture, conversation, and sharing.
Walking through the Empordà with Pla’s eyes is like coming home, no matter where you’re from. It’s getting lost in whitewashed villages, finding a square with stone archways where time seems to stand still, feeling the tramontana wind howl and laughing at it—because that’s what this land is like: intense, free, and impossible to forget.
Pla’s Empordà is not just a landscape. It’s a feeling, a memory, a way of life that, like his literature, always makes you want to return.
