A land of towers and castles

Bal­a­guer's first for­ti­fi­ca­tion, Formós cas­tle is of Arab ori­gin and dates back to the end of the 9th cen­tury when it was used as a bor­der de­fence. Its func­tion changed two cen­turies later when it was turned into the res­i­dence of the An­dalu­sian gov­er­nor. After the Chris­t­ian Re­con­quest, the build­ing served as the of­fi­cial dwelling of the counts of Urgell, who high­lighted its pala­tial rich­ness by giv­ing it the name it goes by today.

The cas­tle and church of Sant Pere have been an in­sep­a­ra­ble unit since Arnau Mir de Tost re­con­quered the Àger val­ley mid­way through the 11th cen­tury. The Urgell noble founded the church on the re­mains of the Mus­lim citadel that had stood there pre­vi­ously, turn­ing the fortress into a major cen­tre of power. The struc­ture's main fea­ture is its round tower that is in fact the largest from Cat­alo­nia's me­dieval pe­riod.

The 11th cen­tury Montsonís cas­tle is eas­ily recog­nised by its square tow­ers crowned by im­pos­ing bat­tle­ments, as well as its win­dows that were in­stalled dur­ing the Re­nais­sance pe­riod. De­spite its dom­i­nant ex­te­rior ap­pear­ance, in­sid­e­there is a mag­i­cal at­mos­phere. Today, the palace has the charm of a typ­i­cal me­dieval fortress down to the last de­tail, in­clud­ing dis­plays of shields, swords and suits of ar­mour, as well as a fright­en­ing dun­geon below its foun­da­tions. The cas­tle is still in­hab­ited and some rooms are sealed off for pri­vate use, but guided vis­its are avail­able all year round.

The first writ­ten records refer to this cas­tle as ma­lignum cas­trum, no doubt for the mark it left in Chris­t­ian mem­ory after it had been used as a fortress by the Moors.

Raised on the high­est hill­top of Os de Bal­a­guer and for­ti­fied in 1035, the cas­tle over­looked the high­est stretches of the River Far­fanya. In 1716, Gas­par de Por­tolà, the first gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia, was born there, ac­cord­ing to re­cent re­search. Today, lo­cated in­side a huge Gothic hall is the Museu de la Cam­pana de Catalunya.

As if straight out of a fairy tale, the cas­tle tower of the Ba­ro­nia de Sant Oïsme rises naked atop a pile of rocks cov­ered in green­ery. After pass­ing through a semi-cir­cu­lar arched gate­way, vis­i­tors to the cas­tle can climb a metal stair­case to enjoy won­der­ful views of Montsec and the Ca­ma­rasa reser­voir.

How­ever, a thou­sand years ago, the sur­round­ings were not so idyl­lic, as the tower was then under con­stant at­tack.