The best gravel rides around Blanes

Small viewpoint above Tordera, with benches to sit on and a spectacular panoramic view towards the coast, the Montnegre and the Montseny. But the curious thing is the stone that gives the place its name, where the inscription 1664 can still be seen. Legend has it that under it begins a tunnel that reaches the sea and that, if you put your ear close, you can hear the waves and the song of the sirens. They even say that listening to them for too long can leave you hypnotized. For my part, I wouldn't put my ear too close. A good place to stop the bike, sit for a while and enjoy the views.

### Iberian settlement of Montbarbat What today seem like a few lost walls in the forest was, more than **2,300 years ago, a genuine Iberian fortified settlement** of about 5,700 m², protected by walls and towers, with streets, dwellings, warehouses, and work areas. Its inhabitants probably belonged to the world of the **Indigetes or Indiketes**, and Montbarbat was right on a border area with the territory of the **Laietanos**, who occupied a large part of Maresme. And here lies one of the keys to this place. They did not choose this mountain by chance. From here they could control **the plain of La Selva, the lower Tordera and the routes that communicated the coast with the interior**, in addition to the great land corridor that centuries later the Romans would use for the Via Augusta. They lived from agriculture and livestock farming, stored grain, worked iron, and traded much further than one might imagine: here have appeared ceramics and amphorae from the **Greek, Punic, and Mediterranean** world. If you reach this point, leave your bike for a moment and enter between the walls. **You are not looking at four stones: you are walking through the streets of a village that watched over this territory centuries before the Romans arrived here.**

A large flat rock in the middle of the forest that has become one of those landmarks that everyone in the area ends up using. Don't expect a monument or a great hidden story: its charm lies precisely in the place where it is located. Roca Plana marks the turn-off to leave the track and attack the last few meters to Turó del Gall (308 m) via a singletrack.

It looks as if we were some centuries back in time!

Before the telephone, radio, or internet, messages could also travel at high speed. This tower was part of a 19th-century optical telegraph network: from the top, a system of mechanical signals was observed with telescopes from the next tower, which repeated the message to the following one. Thus, information could cover enormous distances without anyone having to transport it physically. And here comes the curious part: Puigmarí was just one link in a real chain of towers that communicated Barcelona with the French border. From here, visual contact had to be maintained with the neighboring towers. If you reach it, look at the landscape and try to locate where the next one could be seen from. Suddenly you understand why they built the tower exactly here and not a hundred meters lower. A kind of 19th-century internet, but with towers, telescopes, and signals.

This small hermitage has more lives than a cat. During the Civil War it was looted and reduced to practically three walls. The image of the Virgin had better luck: the farmers of Can Preses hid it during the war. Then came the most surreal thing: abandoned for decades, its ruins ended up serving as a home for charcoal burners. In 2009, the local people got tired of seeing it die, gathered money and work, and managed to rebuild it. And just when it seemed the place was regaining its calm, in 2010 a storm with winds of over 100 km/h felled the gigantic two-hundred-year-old oak tree that stood in front. They even tried to clone it so it wouldn't disappear completely. A hidden Virgin, a looted hermitage, charcoal burners living within its walls, and a cloned tree. For a small chapel lost in the Montnegre, quite a few things have happened here.

It looks like a stone hole lost in the forest, but inside here it reached 800 °C for 10 to 12 days straight. Limestone, tons of firewood, and people feeding the fire day and night to produce the lime with which houses were built and whitewashed. Today there is only silence and forest. Years ago, this was a small hell running 24 hours a day.

Sant Martí de Montnegre Una església aïllada dins del Parc Natural del Montnegre, de gran valor per la seva integració en el paisatge forestal. És un punt de referència en les rutes de l'interior.