Photos

Lloret de Mar is a small city 76 km north of Barcelona on the Costa Brava. It has a population of about 29,000, but during summer this goes up to 200,000. The apartments and houses here are quite expensive and the working population lives in Blanes, south of Lloret de Mar, which costs less. There are many very expensive and large houses in this city. There are probably many rich people from Barcelona who have second homes here.

The main feature of the town is the Lloret de Mar beach, which is about 2 kilometers long. There is a wide paved walkway all along the beach, with a stone bench beside the walkway, so tourists like to sit on the bench and watch the beach.

At one end of the beach are some rock formations that are skirted by a little path paved with stones. There is a small lookout point with the statue of a fisherman’s wife looking out to the sea. She represents the city and is called Doña Marinera, a sculpture by Ernest Maragall done in 1966. At the other end of the beach is a little castle, which is not historic. It is really a private residence of someone rich, who constructed his house like a castle. However it looks elegant and gives the beach an interesting point. It is called the Castell de Sa Caleta. The town has another major beach that is not as big as the Lloret Beach. It is called Playa de Fenals. This is more quiet and has many apartment buildings beside it.

The main attraction of the town are the Gardens of Santa Clotilde, which are not too far from the Playa de Fenals. The gardens are built from the top of a hill all the way down to a cliff beside the sea. They are in the style of the Italian Renaissance and built in 1919, covering an area of 24,000 square meters. The owner of these gardens was the Marques de Roviralta, who lived between 1891 and 1979. He was a doctor and had this vision to build the gardens. His mansion still stands on top of the hill and his family still occupies it. He found a young architect by the name of Nicolau Maria Rubio I Tuduri (1891-1981), who had been a disciple of the famous French architect Nicolas Forestier, the latter architect being the architect of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris and the Maria Luisa Park in Seville.

Many of the walkways in the gardens are lined with Italian cypress trees. There are other evergreen trees such as Mediterranean pines and also cedar trees. There are many Roman style statues made of marble in the gardens, and also many bronze statues of sirens done by the sculptress Maria Limona. There are many small ponds and fountains that let water fall down the sides of the hill, beside steps that are adorned with plants on the sides of the steps.

The regional government of Catalonia declared these gardens of national interest in 1995 and the architect Artur Bossy has recently remodeled the gardens to give them their original form. There is a very small entrance fee to see the gardens. These are probably the most beautiful gardens in Catalonia.

Near the City Hall is the Sant Roma Parish Church. It started out as a 16th century church, but was remodeled and now has a Modernist design with colorful domes and a beautiful side door. Inside the church is decorated very sparingly.