Jagged chunks of crumbling slate threatened to turn my ankles as I made my way to a pillar marking the easternmost tip of Spain. Just a few miles away lay the artsy village of Cadaqués, but the vista that spread before me felt like the end of the world. Rocky fingers of land dipped into a cobalt Mediterranean rippled by blustery winds. Gusts climbed the high ridge upon which I stood and whipped my hair, stinging, into my eyes. Renegade clumps of coarse grass had managed to pierce the scree but offered precious little relief from the relentless gray of Cap de Creus Natural Park.

Natural coves formed by rocky peninsulas on the easternmost tip of Spain, in Cap de Creus Natural Park

I scanned the desolate landscape, thinking that this must be why the region was named Costa Brava. In Spanish, the word costa means coast. The word brava has several meanings, but in this case it is most often translated as wild or rugged. It is an apt description for this 400-million year old mountain chain comprised of mineral-rich metamorphic rocks that have been deformed, enfolded and sheared by geologic forces and plate tectonics, making for a spectacular landscape of exposed gneiss, schist, and slate. Continue reading →