Tossa de Mar walled medieval village
— the only fortified town left standing on the Catalan coast.
Not only on a wall.
Tossa de Mar walled medieval village, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“A walled medieval enceinte on a headland above a curve of sand on the Costa Brava. The Vila Vella was built in the twelfth century, expanded into the fourteenth, and is the only fortified medieval town still standing along the Catalan coastline. Marc Chagall spent the summer of 1933 here and called Tossa his blue paradise. The walls drop straight to the water on the seaward side, and the lighthouse at the top holds the highest light.
The place, in three passes.
Tossa de Mar sits on the Costa Brava in the province of Girona, about 90 kilometres up the coast from Barcelona. The old town, the Vila Vella, occupies a low headland called Mont Guardí that closes the south end of the main beach. Its defensive enceinte was begun in 1186 by order of the Abbot of Ripoll, expanded through the fourteenth century, and includes a wall circuit with seven cylindrical towers, three of which still rise to their original height. It was declared a National Historic-Artistic Monument by the Spanish government in 1931.
The walls are local granite cut from the headland itself, laid in rough courses and pierced by narrow loophole windows facing the sea. The three surviving full-height towers are the Torre d'en Joanàs, the Torre de les Hores, and the Torre d'en Codolar. Inside the enceinte, a tight pattern of cobbled lanes climbs to the ruined Gothic church of Sant Vicenç and to the modern lighthouse at the highest point, which since 2007 has housed a small museum dedicated to Mediterranean lighthouses.
The Vila Vella is open to walk freely, day and night, with no ticket. Inside the walls, the Municipal Museum holds work by Marc Chagall, who spent the summer of 1933 in Tossa and painted his canvas Cielo de Tossa here. The walls take roughly forty minutes to walk at a slow pace. The cleanest views are from the path that climbs from Platja Gran around the seaward side to the lighthouse; sunrise lights the granite directly from the east over open water.
