Bay and fishing village on Gibraltar’s eastern side, also La Caleta.
Catalan Bay, also known in Spanish as La Caleta, is a bay and fishing village on the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar. Historically inhabited by Genoese fishermen, it remains a popular sandy beach area with a hotel, seafood restaurants and a church, attracting residents and tourists.
Catalan Bay, also referred to as La Caleta, is a bay and fishing village on the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar, away from the main town on the Westside. Historically, the settlement formed part of a larger pattern of Genoese fishing communities along Gibraltar’s eastern coast. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Genoese fishermen lived here, and the Genoese dialect was widely spoken, to the point that government announcements were issued in Genoese as well as in English and Spanish. Genoese continued to be spoken in La Caleta into the nineteenth century before disappearing in the early decades of the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century only licensed fishermen, holding fishing permits granted in limited numbers by the Governor of Gibraltar, were allowed to live in Catalan Bay. Many present-day families in the village are descendants of these fishermen of Genoese origin and are colloquially known as “caleteños”. The beach at Catalan Bay is described as the second-largest sandy beach in Gibraltar and is popular with Gibraltarians and tourists, often filling up during the summer. The bay today contains the Caleta Palace Hotel, several seafood restaurants and the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, where an important annual religious ceremony is held on the beach each September.
