Roses and Cadaques

The Citadel at Roses

Roses was once called Rhodes after the 8th c. BC Greeks of Rhodes, its legendary founders. It is more certain that in the 4th c. BC, the Greeks of Marseilles came. There they found the Iberians, whose continuing presence was marked by prehistoric caves and chalcolithic tools, megaliths from 3rd millennium BC and communities in loose connection. What you can see now is a large walled area, called the Citadel, which had been Iberian, Greek, Roman, Benedictine and had fought against Napoleon.

The Greeks brought goods from Marseilles, Ibizza and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, set up kilns for a ceramic industry in their city now only partly excavated. They brought Demeter and they brought lively clay beads from all the ports of the Mediterranean including Africa. And then, via Empuries, came the Romans with armaments, dislodging other forms of culture. The water's edge had cut well into the what is now the walled citadel, and an elaborate Roman house had stood at its lapping shore, near the fish factory for salting tuna and dolphin for export.

The townspeople rebelled against the Romans during the Punic wars and were driven out by Cato in 195 AD. Gradually the fishing industry rebuilt the settlement which was thriving in 4th c AD, even as Rome declined. But its importance was usurped by neighboring cities and it emptied out till the Benedictine order came to set up manufactures and a monastary in 10th c AD.

The exquisite Romanesque Santa Maria of Lombard archiecture joined to the defensive walls, was kept locked at night by the abbot. Now the church with its perfect vaults of circling stones is open to the sky, jagged remains of its soaring nave against bright blue, its multicolored brick arches a shell against the elements.

Arsenal

The Benedictine Abby had thrived and influenced the region so that in the 14-16th c new walls were built. The citadel became a military base and boatbuilding arsenal remembered by gigantic rusted anchors, important enough to be partially destroyed by Napoleon's troops. Little remains of all this except for stone foundations of the medieval hospital and street of houses, a small fortress-like foundation of the governor's house, and massive outter walls.

Cadaques

We walked the ramparts but many centuries' cities still lie beneath the grass. We had lunch at a cheap little seaside place filled with teenagers, where salmon and dill is pressed between hamburger buns. Then we drove in the full sun up a winding tiny, treacherous well-trafficked road and down agains to exquisite Cadaques, a pure white village clustered in an indigo sheltered harbor, whose church rides the village as if surging on a wave.

Dali, Picasso--they were all here, owned summer houses, roamed the vertical slate pathways winding among bright white and tile roofs, or the beaches, the two separated by a jetty, one side shaded against the open sea with tiny artisanal cafes over the water, the other an active beach with more extroverted but still quirky cafes. The church has a Dali painting in its high plain vaults, and an exuberant gold-painted retable of Spanish earthiness and Baroque fanfare. Someone started playing the elegant organ. We couldn't help but linger in the charismatic church but then wandered the port, exhausting me till I sat at water's edge.