Urbanites look to countryside as cities lose appeal during pandemic

With heightened Covid-19 health and safety concerns and tightened restrictions, as well as widespread remote working, more and more city dwellers have been failing to appreciate the joys of urban living since the pandemic struck. 

And some of them, like Gabriela Calvar from Castelldefels, a coastal city half an hour south of the Catalan capital, have even left for good to try their luck in the countryside. 

Calvar, who used to own a bar and rent a €1,000-apartment for her and her two young sons, set out to find a place where they would be more comfortable in the event of a second strict lockdown.

“I was looking for a decently priced home in Catalonia and I found my dream house here,” she explains from Gósol, a Pyrenean town with a mere 206 inhabitants according to the 2019 census, which she admits she would not have been able to locate on a map only a few weeks ago. Now she runs the town’s only corner shop, which if it weren’t for her would have closed as the previous owner went into retirement.