The best walks and hikes around Calders

An old mill on the Llobregat River. In this area, mills were used to produce not only flour, but also gunpowder.

View of the Monestir Sant Benet de Bages from Balç Caner

Molí del Menut. Private property Old mill restored and well preserved 👍

A town with a great history that is worth visiting 🤩

Pleasant walk through Talamanca and its surroundings with a moderate slope. The route runs along well-marked tracks and is marked with milestones with white and green labels. With this itinerary we will discover the medieval origins of Talamanca based on its cultural and natural heritage. The route follows a section of the stream between small gorges and waterfalls that have emerged between the rocks. The itinerary discovers constructions such as the dry stone huts, the water lilies or the unique area of the balma salt of the Gobians and a part following the stream bed, scene of one of the most important battles of the war of succession. Part of the excursion goes through Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Obac Natural Park.

The water pump was a machine for raising water from a river course or a well. It consists of two wheels: one horizontal, to which a rotational movement is communicated by means of a horizontal stick moved by an animal, and the other vertical, which meshes with the first and moves a series of drawers arranged along an endless chain, the lower part of which is submerged in the water of the course or the well. In this case, the water was obtained from a natural spring that rose to a washhouse connected to a system of canals that, by gravity, distributed it to the orchards on the banks of the stream. The iron lever, located near the outer wheel, made it possible to choose one of the several existing channel systems in order to choose the garden that wanted to be watered.

Balma with a semicircular plan with a width of 42 m limited in the central part by a difference in level of 4 meters. The most remarkable thing is a small construction to collect the water that drips from the roof, located in the S area of the balma. The bauma is located on the Gobians stream, which originates at the source of the Pets at the top of the ridge. These mudstones are formed by water undermining the softer materials beneath the conglomerate rock. In the past, the orchards of the people of the village reached almost to the bottom of the bauma. These gardens located in the lower part of the town, next to the Talamanca stream and where there was water, provided the town with fresh vegetables over the centuries.

The network of churches, built in territory conquered by the Saracens, was essential for providing religious services to the colonists. Santa Maria (11th century), in Romanesque style, is an example. The current building shows the 18th century extensions that transformed the original Latin cross plan (one nave) into a basilica plan (three naves). On the facade, the rose window, the bell tower and the portal stand out with two domed semi-circular arches, decorated with an archivolt and Corinthian-style capitals. Behind, the apse is covered with a quarter-sphere vault and ornamented with blind arches and a triple-arched window. In the interior, the semi-circular vault roof reinforced with two lateral arches of the central nave and the Gothic sarcophagus of Berenguer de Talamanca, who died in 1325, stand out.