Clearly, Catalans have a special attraction to mountains. I discovered this one winter weekend a 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Barcelona in the Pyrenees when I visited La Molina, the oldest ski resort in Spain, with a peak rising 2,537 meters (8,320 feet). The train ride, through vistas worthy of the Alps, was noisy with teenagers plucking guitars and singing.
I skied with Pedro Pereira, a Barcelona paper salesman who moonlights as a ski instructor. Pedro took me up to 2,300 meters and showed me snowfields where we broke our own trails. Later Pedro bantered with friends crowded around a table in a cafe, as we banqueted on rounds of fresh bread smeared with tomatoes, olive oil and garlic.
The next day I drove toward south of Tarragona. Trafic packed the road, and I could see that the lure of finding a quiet place in the sun had set thousands of Catalans on the move. When I stopped in the village of San Carlos de la Rapita, I guessed I had hit land’s end. Shipwrecks cluttered the harbor. The town smelled of salt hay and shellfish.
All the action centered on the fish auction-until a helicopter swooped in for a landing. Then I saw beyond the mask of...
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