Barcelona -- The Delta de l’Ebre is a magical part of southern Catalonia’s Tarragona region. A flat swampy area where the Ebro River meets the sea, the delta contains within its confines a natural park rich in fauna and flora as well as 20,500 hectares of rice fields; the ecosystem allows both to coexist in harmony. The area is perhaps at its most magical when the water rises up to cover the plots, creating what the rice producer Teresa Margalef calls a “land of mirrors.”

Until the arrival of the Arabs to the Iberian Peninsula in 711, rice in Spain (and Europe) was a non-cultivated grass with Asian origins; wheat was the crop of choice. The Moors, experts in its cultivation, started to implement their planting and harvesting techniques in the swampy areas in the south and east of the peninsula.Read more