Catalunya is an Autonomous Region within Spain. It combines sea and mountain, industry and services, cities and villages.
Catalunya includes four provinces. The province of Girona is the least extensive, but after Barcelona, it is the most densely populated. It is divided in six judicial districts and it includes 235 municipalities.
Its coast is a great tourist area, known as Costa Brava. It is abrupt and rocky in the north and southern ends, but it is low and sandy in the centre, at Golf de Roses and the beaches of Pals.
The province is an important bypass for the communication between Barcelona and France, with a motorway, a radial road, and the train line Madrid-Barcelona-France. There is also an airport at Vilobí d'Onyar, and a cruise harbour at Palamós.

Within the Girona Province and with an extension of 734.2 square kilometres there is La Garrotxa region, with almost 50,000 inhabitants and a density of 63 inhabitants/km2. Olot is the capital of the region with about 30,000 inhabitants. Other places are: Besalú, Sant Joan Les Fonts, Les Planes d'Hostoles, Les Preses, Castellfollit de la Roca, Santa Pau, Vall de Bianya and Vall d'en Bas.
If you are coming from Girona-Banyoles, Besalú is the entrance to La Garrotxa, situated
on a little hill between the rivers Fluvià and Capellada. It is at the cross roads between the major towns of Olot, Girona, Banyoles and Figueres, and a long time ago it was the capital of an independent county known by the same name. For this reason the village of Besalú is considered in itself an extraordinary artistic and historical monument.

Its origins date back to Iberian and Roman times. In this area there used to be a Roman road known as Via Capsacosta (In fact, this was used up to the nineteenth century to go from Besalú to Camprodón). There has been various findings from the III BC to VII AC.
The Francs invaded this land; and later on there were the Moorish. Eventually, a count known as Guifré el Pilós conquered back all the land that was to become the future independent county of Besalú.
Guifré el Pilós, and his successors built important buildings such as a fortress, various churches (Sant Vicenç, Sant Rafael, Santa Maria and Sant Joan), a monastery and a collegiate church. The county even stamped its own coins and had ambitions to have a bishopric.
In the twelfth century the county of Besalú partly lost its independence when it was joined to the county of Barcelona, which belonged to Ramon Berenguer IV.
However, Besalú continued with great transformations; it had its own Royal Curia, and its own government. Commerce and activity increased, in particular weavers and leader artisans.
The Jews were an important part of the town's population; they built the Jewish baths and a Sinagogue. Some of them had distinguished jobs, such as mayor or poets.
In the fourteenth century Besalú was a proper medieval town; it had more than two hundred farmers, as well as six hundred people living in town. There was a hospital and a charity, known as Pia Almoina.
However, over the time and due to various reasons, including floods, epidemics, earthquake, and war against the French, Besalú gradually lost its role and importance.
There are records that in the eighteenth century there were two factories.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there were seventeen streets, four squares and four hostels. And apart of the surrounding agricultural fields there were also two paper factories, two textile ones, one of electric energy, a flour mill, three oil mills and four transport agencies.
At present Besalú is a fairly important centre in the region because of its industrial growth, its services and its commerce. The town has got bigger, and has new suburbs on the outskirts such as Barri dels Dolors, Barri del Mont, Els Pisos, Racolta… all under five square kilometres and surrounded by two other municipalities: Beuda and Sant Ferriol.