Sailing on the Ebro river has become a
pleasant activity that allows to enjoy the fluvial landscape, the
luxuriant boscos de ribera (bank wood) and their surrounding calmness. You are
accompanied by the singing of the birds that find shelter there.
Traditionally, however, the fluvial navigation had been the centre of trade of several civilizations.
Camí de Sirga (Path of Towrope) by Jesús Moncada (born in Mequinensa) is a famous novel that has portrayed the economical and social activity that developed around the Ebro river:
"The river was the axis of all the economical
life of the town and its inhabitants. When we were children, the river was something really attractive for us:
we used to go fishing, swimming, or sailing; some went there to drown - as every year there was somebody who died.
The Mequinensà (person from Mequinensa) couldn't conceive life without the Ebro or the Segre, because both of them joined in the same tip of the village.
The river was a very important element and navigation was an almost magical world for us" .
Fragment of Camí de sirga by Jesús Moncada (Mequinensa, Baix Cinca 1941 - Barcelona 2005)
Fluvial navigation had been circumscribed to
freight transport for many years. This activity disappeared in the second half of the 20th century because of the consolidation of the net road. But at the end of the 1990s a new project of navigation, exclusively directed to leisure and tourism, was promoted.
Now you can navigate on the river along the 84 km that separate the mouth of the Ebro and the town of Móra D'ebre. Uou can use your own vessel or hire one; you can also join a small cruiser or, for the most adventurous ones, use a canoe or a kayak.
For further information:
Institute for the development of the Regions of the Ebro
Av. Generalitat, 116
43500 Tortosa
Tel. (0034) 977 510 546
www.idece.cat
The Navigable Ebro.
www.ebrenavegable.cat