Toralla Island

Toralla is a small island located on the south coast of the Vigo estuary (Spain), about 400 meters from Vao beach.

It is urbanized, has an area of 10.6 hectares and is connected to the coast of Vigo by a 400-meter-long bridge for public use that starts from Vao beach.

In addition, it is a private island, although attempts have recently been made to open it to the public, without success.

In 2009, the island had 135 inhabitants.

Toralla in Culture

Literature

The island appears in the novel Ojos de agua by Domingo Villar, originally written in Galician. In one of the apartments in the tower on the island, a saxophonist named Luis Reigosa is found dead and Inspector Caldas, the protagonist of the novel, goes there to start the investigation. The inspector thinks that the six hundred apartments in the Toralla tower were too greedy a mouthful to prevent an urban attack.

The island also appears in the novel The Last Day by JP González López. In which a large part of the action takes place within the plot of a post-apocalyptic survival novel within the framework of a fiction of the zombie genre, centered on the city of Vigo. A novel with a critical spirit of today's society in all its aspects, as well as historical curiosities can also be discovered.

Urbanization

The urbanization of the island has been a subject of controversy since its beginnings back in the 60s. The already characteristic tower, about 70 meters high, forms part of a skyline of the Vigo estuary and contrasts with the natural setting that represents the island and its surroundings. There is also the belief that the maintenance of the bridge that connects the island with the rest of the city of Vigo is paid for with public money, but the truth is that the bridge was fully financed by the promoter to which the island belonged, and to this day Today the owners continue to be in charge of its maintenance, since the island acts as a private urbanization and the bridge would be one of its common elements.

About 30 chalets were built on this island, the existence of which led to the construction of concrete walls to contain the fillers with which the coastal area was covered. Underneath the houses it is believed that there are two archaeological sites: an Iron Age castro and a Roman necropolis.

History

The island was originally owned by the Bishopric of Tui. With the Confiscation, Francisco Javier Martínez Enríquez took possession of it and in 1895 Enrique Lameiro Sarachaga acquired it from a niece of the Marquis of Valladares.

In 1910 it was bought by Martín de Echegaray, who returned rich from Argentina. In 1965 her heirs sold it to the married couple José Manuel Kowalski Fernández and Mercedes Peyrona Díez de Güemes. Finally, in 1965 Kowalsky and the brothers Guillermo and Ramiro Vázquez Lorenzo set up Toralla S.A., which built the bridge and developed it. On the one hand, the Torre de Toralla, with 136 homes, is born, and on the other, 34 single-family plots are created. On the island there are 170 houses with an estimated population of 800 inhabitants. The society has wanted to improve the image of the island in recent years, deteriorated mainly by its 70-meter tower, and for this reason it offered the University of Vigo to settle there and also undertook the reconstruction of the breakwater. It also signed a 15-year contract with the Maritime Safety and Rescue Society (SASEMAR) to transfer the roof of the tower to install antennas and communications equipment for the Vigo Rescue Center, as well as a room for an emergency generator. In 1990 the concession for the bridge was revised to make it compatible with public use, which allowed pedestrian access to the island's beach. The last repair was carried out by the owners in the year 2000.