We have been working in several villages in the south of Catalonia, as well as in one comarca (group of several villages), to develop the footpath network and make it atractive to tourists. Building a project like this has several steps, that in our case, go from the very beginning, researching the old paths, to the very end, creating ecotourism experiences and marketing them to tourists:

1. Research on ancient bridle paths, by old maps, old ortophotomaps of the 1956s, land registry maps, local history books, old people of the villages,…
2. Research in the territory, fighting against the vegetation covering the old paths, recognising how difficult and/or expensive could it be to restore and use them again, discovering new ones that weren’t in all the researched documentation,…
3. Office work, putting everything together, building the network so it makes sense both touristically and economically, creating the budget for cleaning, restoration of dry stone paths or walls when necessary, signposting,…
4. Ecotourism work, at the very end, once the footpath network has been restored and signposted, to design activities and holidays attractive to both local and international tourists.

We have developed these type of projects in the villages of Mont-roig del Camp, comarca of Baix Camp, and Ascó, comarca of Ribera d’Ebre. On both cases, it seemed quite impossible to create an attractive footpath network, as they had plenty of paved tracks or areas with no special interest (at least in theory!). But once we sank our curious noses into the old papers and maps we discovered beautiful areas and paths worth a visit.

We also participated in a bigger project, in the Baix Camp comarca, designing the footpath network that linked all the villages, the signposting and also the travel ideas to visit the area. Are in other cities, like Reus and Vinyols i els Arcs.