Míriam Ponsa: "You can go to places where you don't meet almost anyone and it's a bit wild"

About twenty years ago, fashion designer Míriam Ponsa was returning from a fashion show at the Benicàssim Festival, where they had been invited, and they stopped at the Ebro Delta. She recalls they were exhausted: “We were towing the car with a 1970s caravan attached. There was absolutely no one there, you could park on the sand and make a fire”. That's how she began to discover the Delta, her favorite place in Catalonia. From then on, she went there first with friends, in tents, and then with her family in a camper van. She comments that camper van and camper areas have changed a lot, everything is very organized, but the rest maintains its essence quite well, the beach area has little infrastructure and there aren't many beach bars set up either: “You can still go to places where you don't encounter almost anyone, it's very pleasant there, and it's a bit wild, I love it”, she explains.

She is particularly enamored by the wild beaches, where on Trabucador beach the waves are rough with the sea on one side and on the other the Bay of Alfacs, a little calmer. When she spends a few days with her family, they go for a swim and not much else, but for her, that's enough. Besides the beach, she also likes to visit the small villages of the Delta, which she finds beautiful, and where the food is wonderful. She says it's where she has eaten the best rice dishes, and she loves 'menjar blanc', a type of rice pudding that has stolen her heart. They often go to the Ports de Tortosa-Beseit, where there is a strong artisan tradition, or to Mas de Barberans, which has the Palma Museum and celebrates the Palma fair. She likes that tradition is very present, the oldest houses of the rice fields, the rice harvest, the pelicans and all the fauna there: “It's full of bird observatories, it's paradise for ornithology lovers”.

When the children were young, exceptionally, they spent a whole summer there, but they usually go for three or four days, and they try to do it in April or September, avoiding when there are more people, for Easter and in the summer. Many times they go with friends, other families with small children. He says it's perfect for children, even freer than a campsite, without many limitations or architectural barriers. He assures that the days are very long when you don't have other obligations, "it allows you to play sports, read, play cards, and especially enjoy yourself". Ponsa likes life at sea, swimming, walking on the beach, sometimes fishing, the children do kite surfing, and also a lot of reading. "We take the opportunity to be, we prioritize family time", he explains.