Hey everyone! This is my first report ever after months of enjoying your site, hope it ticks all the boxes! I live in a really touristic town (nice old town, they filmed GoT here, cyclists love it...) but this place with an amazing history is far off the tourist route so it lays there for our enjoyment!
Before starting, let me say all the historical pics and most of the history are taken from http://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_montjuic_1.htm , english is not my native language so apologies in advance for any mistakes in the translation/writeup.
About the place:
Montjuïc (meaning Mountain of the Jews) is a hill guarding the town of Girona. Because of the city's proximity with France and the Pyrenees, it's been of strategic importance since many centuries ago. Back in 1659 the Pyrenees Treaty was signed and the military border was very close to Girona, which was in need of a fortification. The first known defense was just a basic fort, but the French kept improving it over the years. Here's a couple of maps, one from 1711, the other from 1821...I find it interesting how the style of drawing changed over a century!
Aerial shot from Google Maps, the place is massive and labirynthical!
On with my pics, but I'll keep telling a bit of history here and there!
The entrance:
The Moat: in the 60's, immigrants from southern Spain set up a squatter town there.
Upon entering you come across the first structures. The ruined stated of the fortess isn't because it was damaged in any major war, it's because during the 19th century people took the stones to rebuild the houses in the city, they 'quarried' the place. Also including a couple of pics of when it was in use for training by the Spanish Army...and for sheepherding!
This is the part shown in the picture above as it stands nowadays:
The place is quite big, so here we go with some general/random shots:
I noticed this building out in the moat which looks like a fortified firing position...I went inside and it was all trashed up, but anyways interesting to see the tiny windows where they would shoot from!
That'll be all, I'm not so good at photography so this report might not do the place justice but it's an interesting feature of an interesting city full of history! More to come soon!
Before starting, let me say all the historical pics and most of the history are taken from http://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_montjuic_1.htm , english is not my native language so apologies in advance for any mistakes in the translation/writeup.
About the place:
Montjuïc (meaning Mountain of the Jews) is a hill guarding the town of Girona. Because of the city's proximity with France and the Pyrenees, it's been of strategic importance since many centuries ago. Back in 1659 the Pyrenees Treaty was signed and the military border was very close to Girona, which was in need of a fortification. The first known defense was just a basic fort, but the French kept improving it over the years. Here's a couple of maps, one from 1711, the other from 1821...I find it interesting how the style of drawing changed over a century!
Aerial shot from Google Maps, the place is massive and labirynthical!
On with my pics, but I'll keep telling a bit of history here and there!
The entrance:
The Moat: in the 60's, immigrants from southern Spain set up a squatter town there.
Upon entering you come across the first structures. The ruined stated of the fortess isn't because it was damaged in any major war, it's because during the 19th century people took the stones to rebuild the houses in the city, they 'quarried' the place. Also including a couple of pics of when it was in use for training by the Spanish Army...and for sheepherding!
This is the part shown in the picture above as it stands nowadays:
The place is quite big, so here we go with some general/random shots:
I noticed this building out in the moat which looks like a fortified firing position...I went inside and it was all trashed up, but anyways interesting to see the tiny windows where they would shoot from!
That'll be all, I'm not so good at photography so this report might not do the place justice but it's an interesting feature of an interesting city full of history! More to come soon!
