Historical Pathways as Promotion and Protection of the Cultural Landscape: Tourism and the Camí de Ronda on the Costa Brava

This article reflects on the growing trend of cultural landscape appreciation and connecting landscapes with their broader heritage surroundings. It focuses on historical trails and their adjacent cultural and natural heritage as a holistic cultural landscape with a particular case from the Costa Brava. The paper links the concepts of natural scenery, identity, authenticity, coastal and cultural heritage, trails, routes and cultural tourism as the basis for understanding cultural landscapes in a heritage tourism context. This paper provides perspectives on how a coastal trail and its surrounding heritage can connect and be experienced as a cultural landscape, which includes architecture, art, literature and archaeology. The findings suggest five themes that connect the historical path with the region’s heritage landscape: the role of tangible and intangible heritage, the development of a heritage discourse, promoting a heritage route, the division of the route into three sections and their connections to tourism, and the acknowledgement of a unique cultural landscape. The totality of the heritage landscape with all its components complements, and is an integral part of, the coastal landscape that appeals to many tourists in the Costa Brava.