L'Estartit

Encyclopedia : L : LE : LES : L'Estartit

L'Estartit is a small town on the Costa Brava, in the north-eastern coast of Spain.

Nestled between the foothills of the Montgrí Massif and the Mediterranean Sea, the town is part of the borough of Torroella de Montgrí, in the Baix Empordà county, Girona province, autonomous community of Catalonia.

L'Estartit covers from Cala Montgó, at the south tip of the Badía de Roses (Roses Bay), to the Ter River delta, in the Badía de Pals (Pals Bay), and stretches up to three kilometres inland from the shoreline. It includes the hills of Roca Maura and Torre Moratxa and the final portion of the river Ter, as it flows into the Mediterranean.

Just a Kilometre off the town harbour lies the Illes Medes archipelago, a world-renowned diving paradise made up of various uninhabited islands. The area is protected by Natural Park status and is home to many different species of flora and fauna, both above and below the waterline.

Initially a fishing village, the advent of tourism in the Costa Brava from the 1960s onwards brought a large influx of visitors to the town during the summer months. The community grew exponentially for the next two decades, initially with houses and villas built up the hills that surround the harbour, and later with hotels, apartment blocks and campsites extending along the beach and the sedimentary plain of the Ter estuary. The tourist industry brought with it a large immigrant population (mostly from other parts of Spain), needed to serve the ever-growing number of visitors. Tourists visiting L'Estartit originate mainly from France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, whilst the majority of the labour force hails from Andalusia.

Like many other tourist resorts around the world, massification and uncontrolled growth led the town to lose the charm that had made it popular in the first place, and tourism has been dwindling since the 1990s. Fortunately, the underwater beauty of the Illes Medes, the large and well-equipped sports marina and the abundance of nearby golf courses keep divers, sailors and golfers coming back year after year.

Distances: Madrid 720 Km, Barcelona 140 Km, France 60 Km, Girona-Costa Brava airport 50 Km, Girona 40 Km, Figueres 40 Km.

Geographical coordinates: N42º3'-E3º12'

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.