Chapter 4. The Foix River and Garraf Karst Natural Park (Barcelona. Spain). Prof. Dr. J. A. Herrera i Sancho.

In this program number 4 we will see how the xató of Vilanova is prepared, it is spoken of the history of the Masia Cabanyes, of Vilanova, where the poet Manuel de Cabanyes and the painter Alexandre de Cabanyes lived; and Antoni Herrera finishes the tour of the Colls Miralpeix in the nine caves next to the town of Sitges (Catalonia. Barcelona. Spain).

In 2004, the management of Canal Blau Televisió del Garraf, in Vilanova i la Geltrú, proposed to two members of the Institut d'Estudis Penedesencs (IEP) a collaboration in an innovative informative series on nature and landscape. rural in the Penedès-Garraf. The then head of the Toponymy Section of the IEP, Vicen? Carbonell i Virella, and the head of the Botany Section of the IEP, Prof. Dr. Josep Antoni Herrera i Sancho, we were commissioned by the IEP and we finally acted as directors-presenters of the series “in situ” and through the various landscapes of the Garraf and the Penedès.

The Vegueria del Penedès (Catalonia. Barcelona. Spain) currently includes four counties, the Alt Penedès, the Baix Penedès, the Garraf and much of Anoia. A well-defined and quite unique landscape conjunction in Catalonia. It seemed to us then, however, that the different administrative delimitations of this vast territory change with unusual spontaneity through the centuries, and what they wanted to represent was a delimitation of the immutable landscape on a human scale. We already had it, the river basins, which form the backbone and give life to a large part of this territory. Of these, the one on the river Foix and the one on the Begues stream represented what was asked of us from television: a good representation of the Penedès and the Garraf.

In the Penedès, sensu lato, there has been and continues to be perfect communion, a coevolution between people and territory. We think about what is one of the best territories in Catalonia to represent it. The forestry activity, the foresters, the diverse trades of the forest, agriculture, the cattle ranch, the fluvial and marine fishing, but also the wells, the mills, the hydraulic force, the orographic difficulties of communication, the secular isolation of the Garraf ... so many things to explain ... And a single thread, a single lifeline, a sculptural and modeling water vector at the same time of the rugged, hard, dry landscape, but taken advantage of hard by the people of Penedès throughout history until the last drop of life esma.

The landscape of the Foix River Natural Park and the Garraf Karst Massif Natural Park was first colonized by various tribes and successive civilizations, but the most recent inscribed inscription is its main farmhouses. Natural spaces and farmhouses, landscape and humanities of Penedès. Here are the two series: the Foix and the Garraf, recorded during the years 2005 and 2006, and broadcast the same years. They were the subject of several re-broadcasts between 2007 and 2010, during the summer programming of Canal Blau TV, at the popular request and also of various hiking organizations, ecologists and many schools and institutes of the Penedès and Garraf, which included many episodes. of the series in its educational programming of the centers.

The current management of Canal Blau TV, which had already discontinued these two series of “Canal Blau a la carte” years ago, and at the formal request of the presidency and the IEP Board of Directors, has ceded the retransmission rights to us. of the same through the web of our institution. Although more than 15 years have passed since the premiere, the territory is still as alive, throbbing and proud as then. We hope you can enjoy the various chapters and episodes of the two series, as we did at the time, treading natural territory and farmhouses, Vicen? himself and Prof.Dr. Josep Antoni Herrera i Sancho.

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