Logbook · 3 places

What to see and do in Llers

What to see and do in Llers (Alt Empordà, Girona): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Llers

Castle of Llers 200 m

Towns near Llers

What to see in Pont de Molins 2.4 km · 1 place
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What to see in Biure 4.8 km · 1 place
What to see in Vilanant 5.1 km · 1 place
What to see in Avinyonet de Puigventós 5.2 km · 2 places
What to see in Cabanes 5.3 km · 2 places
What to see in Vilabertran 5.8 km · 3 places
What to see in Boadella d'Empordà 5.9 km · 1 place

Spain › Catalonia › Girona › Alt Empordà › Llers

What to see and do in Llers

Llers
Village
Llers is known as the 'village of the witches' for its legends, which Salvador Dalí illustrated in his youth; with 1,269 inhabitants, it now functions as a commuter town of Figueres, 48 kilometres from the capital. Its border position in the Middle Ages made it the most heavily fortified area of the Ampurdán: it had a baronial castle on which another eleven depended, and until the 17th century it included the neighbouring village of les Escaules. On 8 February 1938, as Republican troops withdrew toward the border, the detonation of 200 kilograms of TNT stored in the church destroyed much of the population; reconstruction, undertaken after the war, concluded in 1943 with a new quarter next to the old town. From the viewpoint of the medieval castle, the Empordà plain can be seen in its entirety.
Castle of Llers
Monument
The castle of Llers stands on a site that in the Middle Ages was the border between the counties of Besalú and Empúries, which explains its strategic importance since ancient times. Together with eleven other castles that depended on it, it formed a defensive network of great scale; the earliest documented references to the site date from the 10th century, and by the 12th the lineage of the Llers already appears in documentation related to the houses of Besalú and Barcelona. In the second half of that century, Arnau de Llers brought under his rule the possessions of the Cerviá, inherited through his father's line, and the barony of Llers, through his mother's. In the 13th century the castle was extended by the Rocabertí, and from its position it offers an exceptional visual command of the whole of the Empordà.
The explosion of the Llers powder magazine
Historical milestone
The retreating republican army blew up in February 1939 the two hundred tons of explosives stored in the church of Sant Julià so that they would not fall into Francoist hands; the blast killed four people and flattened almost the whole village.