Activities

As part of the European Heritage Days, we offer you a guided tour with a Catalan sign language interpretation service at the Santes Creus monastery.

Santes Creus Monastery came into being in 1160 under the patronage of the Montcada and Cervelló houses and Count Ramon Berenguer IV. On the banks of the River Gaià the monks, who came from the Occitan Abbaye de Grandselve, found the ideal site for building a monastery which, until 1835, would be the centre of one of the largest and most influential monastic domains of the Kingdom of Aragón. Its history and the Cistercian way of life are described in the audiovisual "The Cistercian World".

Santes Creus reached its time of greatest splendour in the 13th and 14th centuries thanks to the favour of the royal house and the nobility. Two kings, Pere el Gran and Jaume II el Just, and Jaume's queen Blanche d'Anjou chose it for their pantheon and were active protectors and patrons. Their remains lie in the church in two tombs, considered masterpieces of early Catalan Gothic and the only ones of the Kingdom of Aragón to have survived intact.

More information on the European Heritage Days 2021: http://patrimoni.gencat.cat/jep2021