Village
Castellterçol is a town in the Moianès, with 2,754 inhabitants (INE 2025), which preserves the castle of Sant Miquel and the birthplace of president Enric Prat de la Riba, now turned into a museum. Its name comes from the Castle estate of a certain Terçol, already mentioned in a land-sale document from the year 898. Traditionally devoted to weaving, at the end of the 18th century it had a wool industry weightier than that of Sabadell or Terrassa; today it manufactures polyester and cotton textiles and dyes, alongside a diversified economy combining cereal and legume farming with pig and sheep farming, the basis of typical cured sausages such as morcillas and longanizas, and with forest products - mushrooms, truffles and honey - turned into preserves, nougats (turrones) and other artisan foods.
Monument
Can Padrós, in Castellterçol, is the birthplace of Enric Prat de la Riba i Sarrà, first president of the Commonwealth of Catalonia, who was born there on 29 November 1870. He was the fifth of seven siblings in a family of rural landowners, and the family home, a manor house in Castellterçol, was also where Prat de la Riba spent much of his life and where he died on 1 August 1917.
Monument
The castell de Sant Miquel, or castle of Castellterçol, stands south of the town, about 750 metres from the old centre, and gives its name to the municipality (Moianès); it is a castle declared a cultural asset of national interest. It was founded by canon Terçol, from whom it took the name castell d'en Terçol, and is already documented in 898. In 1093 Tedmar Mir placed it under the monastery of Santa Maria de l'Estany, reserving for his family — whose surname evolved into Xetmar and Xammar — the useful domain, and that year he had the chapel of Sant Miquel built. The monastery acquired full ownership of the castle in 1229 and its jurisdiction in 1323, and the abbot of l'Estany became lord of Castellterçol. Of the original building, fragments of walls with arrow slits survive, next to the Romanesque chapel.
Monument
The Palau dels Marquesos d'Alòs is a Baroque manor house situated next to the apse of the parish church of Castellterçol (Moianès), with the coat of arms of the Taiadella family catalogued as a cultural asset of national interest. The Taiadella, or Talladella, family, from the mas of the same name in Castellcir, built the house in 1674. It has a ground floor, an upper floor and attics; on the façade, three balconies on the first floor symmetrically frame the doorway, a round arch with the family coat of arms held by two cherubs on the central keystone and, below it, a winged angel's head. Four deteriorated corbels support the balcony of the main floor, and the wooden eaves display gargoyles with figurative themes.
Monument
The Capella de Sant Gaietà, in Castellterçol (Moianès, Barcelona), preserves on its south wall a stone coat of arms declared a cultural asset of national interest, with a Latin inscription alluding to ice (“Fred, gel, glaç i neu, beneïu el Senyor”) and the arms of the Sala family. The slab probably comes from a 17th-century ice well located next to the font de la Vinyota, testimony to the importance of the ice trade in the area, and it was incorporated into the chapel around 1883, the year of its restoration.
Activity
The Festa Major of Castellterçol is held on the fourth weekend of August (22-26 August in 2025), with two traditional Catalan dances as its central events: the Dansa de Castellterçol, on the last Sunday, and the Ball del Ciri, on the following Monday. They are performed by six couples of dancers wearing the traditional 17th-century peasant costume, who formerly represented the outgoing administrators of the year; after Mass, the procession heads to the Church of the Plaça Vella for the dance of the authorities and the sardana, and the next day the same couples dance the Ball del Ciri carrying candles and almorratxas with which they sprinkle the public. The village also holds a winter festa major, on 21 January, dedicated to Sant Fruitós, with the burning of the Christmas tree in the Plaça Vella.
Nature
The area of the riera de Muntanyola, in the Moianès, was protected by the PEIN through Decree 328/1992, an extension completed by Decree 166/2010. It extends between 400 and 1,000 metres altitude, over limestone and marl relief, and preserves a good representation of holm-oak forest with elements of submediterranean vegetation that are rare in the area. Among its fauna, rich in carnivores, notable are the fox and the genet, the short-toed eagle among the birds of prey, and the otter and the native river crayfish in the watercourse, threatened by invasive species such as the American mink and the American crayfish.
Curiosity
The dolmens of Castellterçol (Barcelona, Moianès) are part of the region's route of dolmens and castles. Among them is the dolmen del Gavatx, a closed rectangular cist burial located west of the town centre, at 736 metres of altitude, probably built in the Chalcolithic. The box measures 2.20 m long by 1.30 m wide and 1.25 m deep, and is preserved without a cover, whose slabs would be scattered next to the tumulus.
Activity
Fair devoted to the truffle, a prized local product, with tastings and a market every December in Castellterçol.
Activity
A local produce fair that is part of Castellterçol's main festival.
Activity
The Festa Major d'Hivern de Castellterçol is held in the birthplace of Enric Prat de la Riba, born in 1870, a theorist of political Catalanism and president from 1914 of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya, who died in his birth house in 1917. In the late 18th century, wool-working in the town came to exceed in volume that of Sabadell and Terrassa.
Activity
The Fira de Sant Antoni de Castellterçol is held on 17 January, the feast of Sant Antoni Abat, as a tribute to farmers, woodsmen and traders. The Gremi de Traginers, which brings together Castellterçol, Castellcir, Sant Quirze Safaja and Granera, preserves a banner from 1892; the day includes three laps on horseback around the Plaça Prat de la Riba and the traditional tortell de Sant Antoni.
Curiosity
A route through the dolmens and megalithic monuments scattered across the Moianès comarca. Among them stands out the dolmen of Santa Magdalena, in the municipal area of Moià, dated to the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age: a large single-chamber tomb, oriented north to south, of which the front slab and the capstone survive, although the side slabs and the rear one are missing. Human teeth and two pieces of a pecten-shell necklace were found inside, and in the medieval period a cross surrounded by cypresses, linked to funerary worship, was carved into the capstone. It is catalogued in the Inventory of the Archaeological and Palaeontological Heritage of Catalonia.
Historical milestone
Born in Castellterçol in 1870, he theorised political Catalanism in La nacionalitat catalana and from 1914 presided over the Mancomunitat de Catalunya, the first institution of modern self-government. He died in his birthplace in 1917.
Historical milestone
At the end of the eighteenth century the wool work in the villa came to exceed in volume that of Sabadell and Terrassa, with looms spread through the houses. The activity marked the urban fabric and survived transformed into the modern textile industry.
Food and drink
The holm oak and Portuguese oak woods of the comarca give black winter truffle, gathered with a dog between December and March. From an occasional supplement it has become a main product, with a market of its own and a presence on the menus of the area.
Food and drink
In the villa a cannery devoted to truffle and to forest mushrooms has worked for decades, packing saffron milk caps, chanterelles and truffle in oil. It is the way of carrying the short season of the hills into the rest of the year.