The village where Elayne and I have our home in Spain, and where Mediterrania maintains its warehouse and restoration shop, is called Cruilles. It is a small medieval "pueblo" of less than 1,300 souls - most of whom are weekenders from Barcelona who, like us, have bought and restored stone houses in the village. 

The best known architectural monument in Cruilles is the 11th century defense tower located in the middle of the village square, and that once formed part of a massive wall encircling the settlement.

This part of northeastern Catalonia is called the Costa Brava region. It is a magical place that is comprised of two counties located along the Mediterranean just below the French border, and is the only part of Spain that is similar in look and feel to Tuscany or Provence. 

There are literally hundreds of stunning medieval hill towns and villages in a radius of 40 minutes around Cruilles, and many of them are places where I've found fantastic period antiques over the years. Today I visited a "masia" (a Catalan farm house) 5 minutes down the road in Monells where our chief restorer had heard that a family had decided to sell antiques that they'd had in storage on the property for decades (he heard right).