Empordà has been mythologized. It has been pampered. The media often talks about Cadaqués, Dalí, Josep Pla. Many people from Barcelona spend their summers there. The tramuntana is a wind with pedigree. Greco-Roman civilization reached us through Empúries: Manuel Brunet turned that beginning into the fable The marvelous landing of the Greeks in Ampurias. It is "the smiling plain" that Joan Maragall sang about in Enric Morera's sardana or the one that Jacint Verdaguer looked at from Mare de Déu del Mont to write the epic poem Canigó about the origins of the Catalan nation. The windy and rugged landscape of Alt Empordà and the abrupt and undulating landscape of Baix, with their small rural settlements, are a common theme in Catalan sentimentality, and the same can be said of the coves and beaches of the coast, which are so crowded.