Armed with all its tangible and intangible heritage –designated World Heritage by UNESCO, in some cases–, Catalonia is a land of culture and traditions. Its wide cultural offer allows both young and old to enjoy the Catalan Culture in all its intensity: historical routes, legendary itineraries, museums, heritage discovery, …
NaturExperience has selected a large range of cultural experiences to do with your family, your friends, your partner or on your own around Catalonia. Read on and find out about the cultural activities recommended by naturexperience.cat.
Routes through the Catalan Pyrenees
The Catalan Pyrenees are sprinkled with routes that rhyme with nature, history, charming villages, gastronomy and incredible landscapes. Many companies take advantage of this cultural and natural heritage to offer a whole range of activities.
Located in Vilallonga de Ter (Gironès), Hípica Mas Batlló offers a horse riding trail to discover the Pyrenees of Girona called Bandits Route: a five-day ride across paths, tracks and trails that will allow you to enjoy the Pyrenean landscapes and Camprodon Valley.
Located in Aran Valley, Aran Culturau is a company that offers themed tours and customized guided trails and has access to the keys of all the churches of the valley. Here are two of the main cultural experiences they organize:
- The Pyrenean Romanesque Route allows you to discover the most emblematic churches in the Central Pyrenees.
- The Route of the Unknown Catalan Pyrenees, through secondary quite unknown valleys of both Pallars regions. Museums, ecomuseums and surprise tasting included.
Which cultural experience do you feel most like going for?
Past traditions
Culture rhymes with past traditions. To avoid to let them sink into oblivion and to maintain them alive, naturexperience.cat recommends the three following cultural experiences in Catalonia.
First, the Museum of Paths. This outdoors museum located in Pallars Sobirà will plunge you into the habits, techniques and stories that have filled the rural world with life for centuries. One of the most interesting workshops it offers is about dry stone building, a technique the organizers want to recover in order to maintain the historical paths that have been built many centuries ago.
Secondly, DeltaPolet Natura. This family business located in Delta de l’Ebre spreads ancestral knowledge and savoir-faire and takes you to an immersive experience into Delta culture: interpretation of the formation, geology and history of the Delta and its inhabitants through demonstrations of traditional fishing and workshops on traditional rice farming. You can’t miss it!
And finally, if you want to discover the Neanderthal territory of La Noguera, to find out about its fossils and to interpret the past of those hominids, you must visit Roca dels Bous archaeological site. The guides of Centre Espai Orígens will take you to a tour and provide detailed information about this unique place in Lleida.
Historical routes
Unfortunately enough, battles also leave their mark. If we don’t want to repeat mistakes from the past, we should know our history. The historical itineraries we recommend you below will allow you to discover the history of Catalonia in all details.
As you must know, during the years of the Second World War (1939-1944), thousands of people crossed the Pyrenees to escape from the persecution they were enduring in the German-occupied Europe. If you want to go through those cross-border paths, Som Riu Guiatges proposes the Route of the Persecuted and Saved; a route that highlights the values of those mountain paths as cultural and memory itineraries of Catalonia. This trail across the passes of Àneu Valleys, Cardós Valley and Ferrera Valley, in the heart of Alt Pirineu Natural Park, can also be done on foot or by 4x4.
Triplet Route, by Terra Enllà, is another historical route you must discover. It crosses three of the main historical areas of the territory of memory of the Ebro Battle: the Old Village of Corbera d’Ebre (in ruins), the Devees republican trenches and the Camposines Memorial in honour of the missing soldiers. During the route, you will get a wider vision of that dark period of the Spanish history and will discover some curious facts about the battle in the context of the Civil War, the combatants’ daily life and the soldiers’ experience.
Heritage discovery
To end up with this post about cultural experiences, here are three activities that will allow you to discover the Catalan heritage.
La Cova del Tabac is a 198-metre cave designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site that you can visit in the company of the guides of Centre Espai Orígens. This journey back in time across Mont-roig mountain range and Mu Canyon (Noguera) allows you to discover the way the Pyrenees were born, the local geology, the prehistoric landscape of the area and the remains of the cave paintings that are hidden on the walls of the cave.
The Visit of Sant Urbà i Monclús Church (Noguera) offered by the Catalan Association of Educational Leisure (ASCALFO) is a walk to the ensemble chapel/castle/medieval village of Monclús and to the village of Santa Linya that will allow you to discover the nature, history and legends of that mysterious Catalan spot.
The last option we recommend you is the Trip to Puig de Millà and La Cova del Biot, in which you will discover the Pla de les Bruixes (Witches Plains, in the Noguera region), with its legends, its farming traditions, its vegetation and the surrounding troglodytic ecosystem. And if you want to give the experience a great final touch, walk up to the mirador!
As you can see, naturexperience.cat offers a wide range of activities and cultural experiences in Catalonia. Apart from the few we recommend in this post, you can discover many other routes and tours here.
