Towards the end of the 19th century the people of
Bages altered the district's landscape with the addition of
drystone walls, vineyard huts and large stone tubs known as
tines. These changes took place between 1860 and 1890 in response to the large-scale planting of vines, which made the district the one with the largest area of land under vine in Catalonia. The heritage from those times has now become one of the
jewels of our country's ethnological heritage. Moreover, since 2018
the art of drystone construction has been considered by UNESCO to be
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The
tines, or
large stone tubs, of the Vall del Flequer, are located on the banks of the torrent course of the same name in the municipality of
Pont de Vilomara i Rocafort, where you can also see the remarkable
medieval bridge over the river Llobregat. From here you can follow a
circular route that will take you to some of these large stone constructions, such as the
Tines d'en Bleda—an ensemble hidden away in the woods, Les
Tines d'en Tosques and the spectacular
ensemble of l’Escudelleta, consisting of eleven circular stone tubs and seven stone huts. All of these constructions were for winemaking next to the vineyards, given that transporting grapes was very cumbersome and very expensive.
Nearby there are other places of interest that have left an impact on the history of the district and they are just waiting to be discovered. Such is the case with the
monastery of Sant Benet de Bages, a former Benedictine abbey in the municipality of
Sant Fruitós de Bages, and
Talamanca castle, one of the ten locations on the
1714 Route where, in Catalonia, the most prominent events during the
War of the Spanish Succession took place.
If you want to go back even further in time, the
Central Catalonia UNESCO World Geopark is a must. It extends over de
1,250 square kilometres and consists of twenty-nine municipalities in Bages, five in the district of Moianès, and Collbató, in the Baix Llobregat. The spectacular rock formations and the natural resources that have defined this landscape are now more prominent than ever thanks to this initiative, with its guided tours, which explain such surprising features as the
Central Catalonia Sea, the
Cultural Park of the Salt Mountain of Cardona, and the
tines de la Vall del Flequer route itself.
An excursion proposed in collaboration with the magazine
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