La Pedra de les Orenetes and Crypt at the Colònia Güell

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. La Pedra de les Orenetes

   La Pedra de les Orenetes, the Swallows' Stone, is a granite boulder in the hills above La Roca del Vallès, and its surface is covered with small carved hollows and other marks left by people in prehistory. Nobody knows exactly what they meant; such engraved rocks are found across Catalonia, and theories range from ritual offerings to maps of the stars. The rock sits among cork oaks and pines in the Serralada Litoral, the coastal range that separates the Vallès plain from the sea, and the walk to reach it is short and pleasant, through scented forest with views over the plain.

   Read the complete La Pedra de les Orenetes write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   La Pedra de les Orenetes is where the day begins. Next is Hospital de Sant Pau.

2. 2. Hospital de Sant Pau

   There is a hill in Barcelona that most visitors reach by accident, on the walk from the Sagrada Família down a long avenue named after Gaudí. At the end of it stands the Hospital de Sant Pau, one of the greatest works of Catalan Modernisme, designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and built between 1902 and 1930 with money left by a banker called Pau Gil. The architect rejected the idea of a single block. Instead he built a garden city of pavilions, joined by underground tunnels, each with brick walls, tiled roofs and mosaics, so that patients could look out on trees and sky. It worked as a hospital until 2009, and has since been restored as a museum and cultural centre. UNESCO listed it in 1997 together with the Palau de la Música Catalana, also by Domènech.

   Read the complete Hospital de Sant Pau write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hospital de Sant Pau comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crypt at the Colònia Güell.

3. 3. Crypt at the Colònia Güell

   Few people ride out of Barcelona expecting to find Gaudí in a mill village, but that is exactly what waits at Santa Coloma de Cervelló, a short hop up the Llobregat from Sant Boi. The Colònia Güell was a textile colony founded by the industrialist Eusebi Güell, who moved his cotton works out of the city in the 1890s and built housing, a school, shops and a theatre for the workers around the factory. He asked his friend Antoni Gaudí for a church. Gaudí spent about ten years on the design and its foundations, and when money and the Güell family's enthusiasm ran out around 1914, only the lower level had been finished. That crypt is what you come to see.

   Read the complete Crypt at the Colònia Güell write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Crypt at the Colònia Güell. Next is back through Hospital de Sant Pau.

4. 4. back through Hospital de Sant Pau

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Hospital de Sant Pau write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Hospital de Sant Pau, late in the day. Next is La Pedra de les Orenetes.

5. 5. La Pedra de les Orenetes

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete La Pedra de les Orenetes write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at La Pedra de les Orenetes. That is the ride.