Village
Sant Carles de la Ràpita is a town in the Montsià county, in the province of Tarragona, in the north-western part of the Alfacs bay, next to the south-western edge of the Ebro delta. Its municipal area includes the Trabucador beach and the Banya peninsula, with the Punta de la Banya Nature Reserve, within the Ebro Delta Natural Park, while to the west rises the Montsià mountain range. The current name dates from 1780 and honours Charles III, who promoted the port; during the Second Republic it was renamed La Rápita de los Alfaques, a name abandoned after the civil war. In 2021 a referendum to bring back the name la Ràpita won on votes but did not reach the minimum required turnout. The town lives from fishing and a renowned seafaring cuisine.
Monument
Unfinished neoclassical church, part of the Enlightenment city project that Carles III ordered built next to the port of the Alfacs in 1780; work was halted eight years later without roofing the dome planned over its Greek-cross plan, and it was declared a monumento histórico de interés nacional (historic monument of national interest) in 1984, together with the Glorieta.
Monument
Neoclassical belvedere pavilion, popularly known as la Capelleta, located at the end of the urban axis — the streets Governador Labadie, the plaça de Carles III, the plaça d'Espanya and the carrer de Sant Francesc down to the sea — that runs through the settlement created in 1780 by Charles III as the crowning point of la Ràpita, with views over the harbour and the sea. It is a small, freestanding, unfinished building, with a rotunda plan extended by an attached rectangular wing; towards the town it opens with three semicircular arches flanked by Doric pilasters. Its planned dome, the roof, the flooring and the rendering of the walls were never built. Declared a historic monument of national interest in 1984, together with the Església Nova.
Monument
16th-century rectangular tower, of rubble masonry with ashlar quoins, its access door, in a voussoired archway, facing the sea; crowned with battlements, it preserves two machicolations — one beheaded, above the door, and another on the wall facing towards Alcanar — and is in good condition, with the original vaulted ceiling on the ground floor. In 1580 it belonged to the Reverter family, one of the leading families of Alcanar. It is the first of a group of three towers of the same name lined up along the N-340, probably raised in the late 16th century in response to increasing raids by Berber and Turkish pirates along the Tortosa coast, built and maintained by the city of Tortosa with the crown's help; it forms part of the generic group of the five Alfacs towers.
Monument
It stands on a 113-metre hill west of the village, from where it commands the coast. It is documented in the 15th century, in the 16th it served to watch for corsair landings, and in the 19th it was reused as an optical telegraph tower on the Madrid-la Jonquera line. Its conversion into a religious monument greatly reduced its height: today the remains are crowned by a statue of the Sacred Heart, and the site serves as a viewpoint over the delta.
Monument
18th-century coastal battery to defend the port and canal of la Ràpita, designed in 1748 and built between 1780 and 1787, though not considered finished until 1811; it was built on the site of the old Andalusi castle of la Ràpita, granted in 1097 to the monastery of Sant Cugat.
Nature
The badia dels Alfacs is a wide bay at the southern end of the Ebro delta, between Sant Carles de la Ràpita and the mouth of the river, protected by the spit of land known as la Banya, joined to the mainland by the Trabucador isthmus. Formerly a sandbank called l'Alfac, it grew with sediment from the Ebro until it formed today's natural harbour, considered one of the safest on the Catalan coast for vessels drawing up to 6 metres. On its southern side, within la Banya, lie the Ràpita salt pans, and in the northern sector, next to Amposta, stands the Torre de Sant Joan, a former watchtower against piracy.
Activity
The Festes Majors of Sant Carles de la Ràpita (Montsià, Tarragona) are held on 25 July, the feast of Sant Jaume, and preserve traditions linked to the maritime world of this fishing town. The main event is the bou capllaçat, in which a bull is led through the streets of the town on a rope; it draws thousands of enthusiasts, as also happens in the neighbouring towns of la Cava, Amposta and Alcanar.
Activity
Sant Carles de la Ràpita's Festa Major d'Hivern is held in the purpose-built city that Carlos III ordered to be raised in 1780 beside the badia dels Alfacs, and where the novelist Sebastià Juan Arbó, author of Terres de l'Ebre, was born in 1902.
Monument
Fishing and leisure port of Sant Carles de la Ràpita (Montsià, Tarragona), one of the most important in Catalonia by volume of catches and the high number of boats working from it. Catches of langoustine and shellfish are especially notable.
Curiosity
The salt flats of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, known as the Salines de la Trinitat, occupy the Punta de la Banya, next to the Alfacs bay, and with about 1,000 hectares are the largest in the Ebro delta. Their origin dates back to around the 14th century, although salt production was already significant in Arab times, as recorded in the Tortosa charter of settlement of 1149. In 1869 Isabella II granted its administration in perpetuity to a mining company, and in the 1960s it came to account for almost 4% of national salt production. Declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Local (a heritage protection designation at local level) in 2014, they are today the only active salt flats in the delta and preserve salting ponds, dwellings, offices and an old wooden pier dating from around 1905.
Historical milestone
Carlos III ordered in 1780 that a wholly new city and a great port be raised beside the badia dels Alfacs, with a regular grid and monumental buildings. The project was left unfinished after the king's death, but it fixed the urban layout that can still be recognised.
Historical milestone
The writer Sebastià Juan Arbó was born in La Ràpita on 28 October 1902, the son of a family of farmers, and died in Barcelona on 2 January 1984. He worked as a journalist for La Vanguardia and ABC before publishing his first novel, L'inútil combat, in 1931. With Terres de l'Ebre, his best-known work, published in 1932, and with Camins de nit, from 1935, he brought into Catalan fiction the landscape of the rice paddies and the life of the fishermen and farmers of the river's mouth. After the Civil War he stopped publishing until 1947; in 1948 he won the Premio Nadal with Sobre las piedras grises, written in Spanish, and in his last years he returned to Catalan with works such as La masia, from 1975.
Food and drink
The king prawn of the bay is the star product of the local fish market, of sweet flesh and fine texture thanks to the mixture of fresh and salt water that occurs in the Alfacs. It is prepared on the griddle or boiled and it heads the menus of the port's restaurants.
Food and drink
The rafts of the badia dels Alfacs produce mussels and oysters in shallow waters protected by the Trabucador bar. They are eaten raw, steamed or gratinated and they are, along with the king prawn, the basis of the town's seafarers' cooking.
Food and drink
Seafarers' dish made with noodles toasted in the dish and then cooked with rock fish broth, served with allioli apart. It is one of the classic preparations of the port, along with the brothy rice dishes and the fish suquets.