Altafulla
Altafulla is a municipality in the comarca of the Tarragonès in Catalonia, Spain. The town of Altafulla has a beautifully intact old quarter crowned by the Castle of Altafulla, and an old fishing quarter dating back to the 18th century along the beach, called "Baixamar" or "Les Botigues de Mar".
An additional medieval castle on a small promontory overlooking the sea, the Castle of the Marquises of Tamarit (not open to the public) is often thought as part of Altafulla, but it's actually located in the neighbor municipality of Tarragona. Beyond the castle is one of the last remaining forests stretching along the sea in Catalonia, part of which is a small nature preserve (under the Tamarit-Punta de la Móra Special Environmental and Landscape Protection Plan).
Altafulla is also home to the remains of the Roman Villa of Els Munts, which is included in a larger UNESCO World Heritage Site The Gaià River "empties" into the sea here, its last stretch being a small nature preserve and haven for songbirds (Reserva Natural de Fauna Salvatge de la Desembocadura del Gaià - Gaià River Estuary Wildlife Preserve), though due to damming upriver, it carries very little water at this last section, forming a tiny salt marsh separated from the sea by a bar of sand. This wildlife preserve is run by L'Hort de la Sínia, an ecological agriculture, learning and activities center.
Altafulla has one of the highest median household incomes in the province of Tarragona.
* ?? Roviano, Italy
An additional medieval castle on a small promontory overlooking the sea, the Castle of the Marquises of Tamarit (not open to the public) is often thought as part of Altafulla, but it's actually located in the neighbor municipality of Tarragona. Beyond the castle is one of the last remaining forests stretching along the sea in Catalonia, part of which is a small nature preserve (under the Tamarit-Punta de la Móra Special Environmental and Landscape Protection Plan).
Altafulla is also home to the remains of the Roman Villa of Els Munts, which is included in a larger UNESCO World Heritage Site The Gaià River "empties" into the sea here, its last stretch being a small nature preserve and haven for songbirds (Reserva Natural de Fauna Salvatge de la Desembocadura del Gaià - Gaià River Estuary Wildlife Preserve), though due to damming upriver, it carries very little water at this last section, forming a tiny salt marsh separated from the sea by a bar of sand. This wildlife preserve is run by L'Hort de la Sínia, an ecological agriculture, learning and activities center.
Altafulla has one of the highest median household incomes in the province of Tarragona.
* ?? Roviano, Italy
Map - Altafulla
Map
Country - Spain
Flag of Spain |
Anatomically modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 42,000 years ago. The ancient Iberian and Celtic tribes, along with other pre-Roman peoples, dwelled the territory maintaining contacts with foreign Mediterranean cultures. The Roman conquest and colonization of the peninsula (Hispania) ensued, bringing the Romanization of the population. Receding of Western Roman imperial authority ushered in the migration of different non-Roman peoples from Central and Northern Europe with the Visigoths as the dominant power in the peninsula by the fifth century. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centered in Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them León, Castile, Aragon, Portugal, and Navarre made an intermittent southward military expansion, known as Reconquista, repelling the Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Emirate of Granada in 1492. Jews and Muslims were forced to choose between conversion to Catholicism or expulsion, and eventually the converts were expelled through different royal decrees.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
EUR | Euro | € | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
EU | Basque language |
CA | Catalan language |
GL | Galician language |
OC | Occitan language |
ES | Spanish language |