Peregrino

Peregrino is 10 hectares of wild mountainside in the Spanish province of Tarragona.
A couple of hours drive from Barcelona, just over 300km from the French border, it falls within an area of Catalunya. They call it Terra Alta, the high ground.

Once it was all farmed, then came the Civil War, and rural villages were devastated, destroyed, deserted.

Now in the surround are a dozen small villages, each with about 1 000 -1 500 inhabitants.

Peregrino - at First Look

The land flows down into the valley, pouring itself out into the the multiple bancales, the ’steps’ cut into the hillside long ago for agriculture.

Dug by hand, once tended and nurtured, these have been left to run wild for decades. Their present crop of shrapnel from the desperate battle of the Ebre is a more telling view of history than any dry text book.

The bancales are contained within dry walls, carefully built. Some have endured, some need repair. There is a central platform with a shepherd’s hut, and a stone-built surround to a water catchment.

The steepest slopes are covered with pines at the high points, graduating down to wild thyme, rosemary and compact bushes in the lower sections.

On the gentler areas are almond trees from forgotten harvest times, and a few wild figs.

Tracks of wild deer and javali, the wild pigs, are deeply indented in the damp soil.

Access

Up until 2009 access was quite a problem. The road leading to the farm was very old, narrow, and quite treacherous.

Then late November that same year showed a different picture.

The farm is high up, and there are plenty of winds. Spain is a leader in wind power - you know, those huge white 3-armed windmills that create energy. Almost 50 % of our nation’s power now comes from wind.

A line of these windmills has begun its march across our region. AND to do this they have to get all their heavy machinery there . . .so. .the roads have been upgraded.

Now we have deep-surfaced, wider roads to within 1 km of the farm. Maybe they will even go past the front door.