Tossa de Mar: the Vila Vella and the lighthouse: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
The fortified Vila Vella and the lighthouse
Tossa grew outwards from a fortified hill: a chapel from 1593, then a hospital and a parish church built outside the walls in the 18th century, and back inside them a film star's statue, a museum, a tower and a ruined church that tell the older story.
The stops
Also called sa Platja, this is the central beach of Tossa. It is about 380 m of coarse, pinkish sand, and fishermen's boats are hauled up on it because Tossa has no harbour where they could moor. The headland and the walls of the Vila Vella make one of the most photographed views of Tossa and the Costa Brava, and this walk heads for those walls by way of the town that grew up outside them.
Photo: Txllxt TxllxT — CC BY-SA 4.0 Antoni Caixa, a ship owner and merchant, had this chapel built in 1593 at the spot where the royal road forked towards La Carbonera and Lloret de Mar. It then stood alone among gardens, some way from the gate of the Vila Vella, and it may have been his offering after a moment of danger at sea. The lintel still carries a merchant's bale and a cross, and every January the Pelegrí pilgrimage to Santa Coloma de Farners starts and ends here.
Photo: Alberto-g-rovi — CC BY-SA 4.0 This hospital for the poor was founded in the 18th century by Tomàs Vidal, who had become wealthy in America, and it was one of the first significant buildings of the Vila Nova, the new town spreading beyond the walls. A carved oval shield above the entrance shows a cross over a skull and crossed bones. The building now houses the village's cultural centre, and its chapel of Sant Miquel has a baroque altar.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 As the population grew beyond the old walls in the 18th century, work began in 1755 on a new parish church, helped by a levy of a thirtieth of Tossa's production. The parish moved across from the old church in a solemn procession in the mid-1770s. The façade is built of stone from Montjuïc in Barcelona, with a statue of Saint Vincent in a niche above the door and a large rose window.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 A statue of Ava Gardner stands on the hill above the town's main beach. She came to Tossa in 1950 with James Mason to film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, and in the film Tossa plays the Spanish port of Esperanza. The film was shot mostly in Tossa.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 The museum opened on 1 September 1935 in the house of the bailiffs of the abbots of Ripoll, the feudal lords of Tossa until 1835, and it is described as one of the first contemporary art museums in Spain. The house leans against the town wall and the 14th-century Torre des Codolar. Its art comes from artists who settled in Tossa in the 1930s, among them Marc Chagall, who was captivated by the blues of the landscape, and André Masson.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 The Vila Vella is the only fortified medieval town still standing on the Catalan coast, and it was declared a national historic and artistic monument in 1931. Its walls run about 300 m around the headland and were built between the 12th and 14th centuries, partly as protection against pirates. The Torre d'en Joanàs is the easternmost of the three main towers, built on the rocks above the sea.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 After the settlement charter of 1186 the parish church stood up here on Mont Guardí, but the sea air had damaged it, it was too small and it was far from the village centre, so the parish moved to a new church in the town. Early in the 19th century an explosion of a French powder magazine damaged its front, and villagers later took its stone for their houses. Only the Gothic apse and the remains of one side chapel stand today.
Photo: Jordiferrer — CC BY-SA 4.0 Tossa's medieval castle stood on this headland, Mont Guardí, and was later turned into a windmill. In 1917 the windmill and the last of the ruins were demolished to make way for the lighthouse, which was inaugurated on 29 August 1917. A 1904 plan to light the dark stretch of coast between Calella and Palamós picked Cap de Tossa because it juts further into the sea than the existing lights.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0
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