Much of the province of Tarragona was for four centuries under Moorish rule, with the last Muslim bastion - Siurana - being ´reconquered´ by the Christian counts of Barcelona and the Knights Templar in 1153. In this ´new´ Catalonia, Romanesque churches (or rather, Romanesque-Gothic churches) were built on the site of old mosques or even older Visigothic rubble. And Moorish castles refurbished to accommodate Christian castles, the best example being the Knights Templar castle at Miravet.
The stretch of land in Southern Catalonia that was captured earliest, in the 10th century, was the Gaià river where one can find dozens of castles and fortifications that served to defend Christian Catalonia for a period of two centuries from what was then still Moorish land, going all the way from heart of the Conca de Barbera down to Tamarit where the Gaià meets the Mediterranean. This was basically the border between Christian and Muslim land up to the 12th century when these castles lost their strategic function. Surprisingly, it is here that one finds the greatest density of medieval castles and towers in the whole of Catalonia.
Most interesting is to move away from the best-known but many-a-times re-engineered castles of Tamarit and Altafulla and to get to the Gaià river north of the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus. From here all the way to the source of the river we are entering a wilder, leafier landscape, away from civilization, where the Gaià river still runs wild and where castles are perched atop elevated rocks. Many of the surviving ones are concentrated north of the village of Querol in the Conca de Barbera and are now increasingly being taken care of by teams of archeologists and restorers (like the one in Selmella). The jewel in the crown is the steep, 25-metre-high tower of the 10th-century castle of Santa Perpètua de Gaià (in the vicinity of Pontils).
There is now a ´castle route´ which you can follow; to download the info go to:
http://www.concadebarbera.info/quefer/rutesconca/rutadelscastellsdelgaia.php
And for more on the restoration of the Selmella castle and other fortifications go to:
http://www.altcamp.cat/noticia.php?id=169
The stretch of land in Southern Catalonia that was captured earliest, in the 10th century, was the Gaià river where one can find dozens of castles and fortifications that served to defend Christian Catalonia for a period of two centuries from what was then still Moorish land, going all the way from heart of the Conca de Barbera down to Tamarit where the Gaià meets the Mediterranean. This was basically the border between Christian and Muslim land up to the 12th century when these castles lost their strategic function. Surprisingly, it is here that one finds the greatest density of medieval castles and towers in the whole of Catalonia.
Most interesting is to move away from the best-known but many-a-times re-engineered castles of Tamarit and Altafulla and to get to the Gaià river north of the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus. From here all the way to the source of the river we are entering a wilder, leafier landscape, away from civilization, where the Gaià river still runs wild and where castles are perched atop elevated rocks. Many of the surviving ones are concentrated north of the village of Querol in the Conca de Barbera and are now increasingly being taken care of by teams of archeologists and restorers (like the one in Selmella). The jewel in the crown is the steep, 25-metre-high tower of the 10th-century castle of Santa Perpètua de Gaià (in the vicinity of Pontils).
There is now a ´castle route´ which you can follow; to download the info go to:
http://www.concadebarbera.info/quefer/rutesconca/rutadelscastellsdelgaia.php
And for more on the restoration of the Selmella castle and other fortifications go to:
http://www.altcamp.cat/noticia.php?id=169
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