Cortegada Island

Cortegada is an almost tidal island (it is possible to go walking when the lowest tides happen, but a small amount of water flow does not disappear) in a coastal inlet near Pontevedra in Galicia, Spain. It is part of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park.

Cortegada island is part of an archipelago that includes the Malveiras Islands or Briñas Islands, Cies, Ons, and Salvora, and—the largest and the most populated one—A Illa de Arousa. Cortegada, due to its location near the mouth of the river Ulla, is sheltered from the wind within an estuary named "ría de Arousa". This and its topography give it environmental conditions more favourable to hydrophilic woodland than the other islands of the National Park.

The island is connected to the mainland via a tidal causeway, a trackway 189 metres wide covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. A track was built on the sandbar and it has stabilized a breeding ground for clams as a commercial clam hatchery. The tides in the area change quickly, and can be dangerous for pedestrians on the causeway.

Originally the site of a village of the municipally of O Carril (today Vilagarcía de Arousa), at the start of the 20th century, Cortegada was expropriated from its 211 tenants, on the initiative of a local businessman, with the intention of building a royal summer retreat. Offered as a present to King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who visited the island just once. in September 1907, Cortegada was sold by his son Don Juan de Borbón in 1978 to a private company. It was recently bought back by the government and added to the mentioned Natural Park. The island had been inhabited until the late 19th century and used to site a monastery, hospital and leper house or lazar house. It has the remains of several stone houses, sheds and storerooms, a 17th-century stone chapel and a dock.

...
Wikipedia