Village
Cruïlles is a hamlet in the municipality of Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, in the Baix Empordà comarca, dominated by the Romanesque castle and the former monastery of Sant Miquel, one of the most notable religious complexes in the comarca. It was the seat of the Barony of Cruïlles and, until 1974, an independent municipality, with 183 inhabitants in the mid-19th century according to Pascual Madoz's dictionary. That year it joined Monells and Sant Sadurní de l'Heura to form the present-day municipality. In 2023 the population entity had 245 registered inhabitants.
Village
Monells is a hamlet in the municipality of Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, in the Baix Empordà, 56 metres above sea level by the Rissec river, where the valley opens out towards the plain. Documented since 1019, in 1103 Count Ramon Berenguer III granted it the transfer of the market that until then had been held at Anyells; that market became the most important in the comarca in medieval times, to the point that in 1234 James I the Conqueror took its mitgera, a grain measure, as a reference together with that of Girona to set cereal prices. It was an independent municipality until 1974. Today it retains a layout of arches and arcades on its porticoed square, one of the most charming corners of the comarca.
Village
Sant Sadurní de l'Heura is a small agricultural hamlet in the Baix Empordà which, together with Cruïlles and Monells, gives its name to the municipality unified in 1975. It lies near the boundary with Cruïlles, less than 2 km from that village, on the road that runs from La Bisbal d'Empordà to Cassà de la Selva and crosses the Gavarres through the Santa Pellaia pass, afterwards following the course of the Daró river. The village forms a cluster of narrow, elongated streets, widening at the ends, and many houses retain stone lintels from the 18th and 19th centuries. The parish church of Sant Sadurní, documented since the 11th century, is a large building erected in the 18th century. The municipality, one of the most extensive in the comarca, also comprises the hamlet of Mas Savalls and the village of Sant Joan Salelles.
Monument
The monastery of Sant Miquel de Cruïlles, 4 kilometres from La Bisbal d'Empordà, is a former Benedictine foundation whose church, of basilical plan with three naves and three semicircular apses, dates from the first half of the 11th century; it was endowed between 1031 and 1057 by the lords of Cruïlles, and in 1057 its community joined the Italian monastery of San Michele della Chiusa, in Piedmont. It retains barrel vaults, Lombard decoration of blind arcading and fragments of Romanesque wall paintings in the apse, with a frieze of confronted lions on a red background. In the 16th century the western façade was rebuilt, shortening the church. It also holds two Gothic ossuaries, of 1348 and 1393, of the Cruïlles lineage. It is declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
A Romanesque castle of the 11th-12th centuries crowning the village centre of Cruïlles, in the Baix Empordà. Of its original fabric only the keep survives today, as the old walls have disappeared. The tower underwent an interior refurbishment in 2004 and 2005 that recovered a spiral staircase, allowing access to its upper part and to the panoramic views it offers over the surroundings. It has been declared a Bien de Interés Cultural since 8 November 1988, with the classification of Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) and code BCIN 715-MH.
Monument
The castle of the 13th-15th centuries and the walled enclosure of Monells, one of the best-preserved medieval ensembles in the comarca, beside its distinctive porticoed square.
Curiosity
An old flour mill of les Gavarres, listed as an asset of ethnological interest along with other features of the massif shared with the comarca of the Gironès.
Monument
Parish church of Cruïlles, from the 17th century, in the municipality of Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura (Baix Empordà), of large dimensions, with a single nave, side chapels and a semicircular abside, where a classicist baroque, visible on the portal, is combined with late-Romanesque and Gothic forms typical of the country's popular religious architecture. On the front there is a portal with the date 1754 and a saltire cross recalling the saint's martyrdom; to the northwest rises a tall square bell tower of limestone ashlar. The temple already existed in 1035, when it is cited in a will, and was consecrated in 1062 by the bishop of Girona Berenguer Guifré; in 1144 it came under the dependency of the nearby Benedictine monastery of Sant Miquel de Cruïlles.
Monument
A rural Romanesque church in the municipality of Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, part of the extensive network of Romanesque churches that characterises the Baix Empordà.
Monument
Santa Pellaia is a settlement of scattered farmhouses in the municipality of Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, in the Gavarres massif, within the Baix Empordà. It was an independent local entity until 1846, when it was incorporated into the term of Cruïlles together with Sant Cebrià de Lledó and Sant Cebrià dels Alls; in 1974 Cruïlles merged with Monells and Sant Sadurní de l'Heura to form the present municipality. Its parish church, of Romanesque origin, has undergone numerous reforms and has survived to this day in very good condition, thanks above all to the efforts of the residents; the place and the temple are mentioned for the first time in a document from 1064.
Monument
A small 10th-11th-century church with a single nave with pointed vault, a semicircular apse, opus spicatum walls and a bell-gable over the triumphal arch; the west façade was rebuilt in 1596 and the whole was restored between 1985 and 1987. Its 12th-century wooden reliquary is kept in the Museu d'Art de Girona.
Monument
Parish church of the hamlet of Sant Cebrià de Lledó, in the Gavarres mountains, in the municipality of Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, already documented in 1279 as Sancti Cipriani de Letone. It preserves most of the Romanesque nave, with a barrel vault and two semicircular transverse arches, although it was rebuilt in the 16th-17th centuries with a new polygonal chancel, side chapels, a choir and a bell tower with a square tower topped by a pyramidal spire; the doorway bears the date 1588 carved on its lintel. The medical saints Cosmas and Damian were so popularly venerated there that the place came to be known as «els Metges»; the aplec on 27 September, of the Concòrdia in memory of the truce between supporters of the two sardana styles, ceased to be held in 1981.
Monument
Church of the late Romanesque period (12th-13th centuries), with a rectangular nave and pointed vault, and chapels and a sacristy added in the 17th and 18th centuries; the 2007 excavations uncovered inside a semicircular apse from the 11th century and a trapezoidal pre-Romanesque structure from the 8th-9th centuries. Already cited in 1064 as Sancti Cipriani de Aliol, head of a parish of about forty farmhouses scattered across the Gavarres in the 14th century, near the Puig d'Arques, which in 1359 had 28 hearths and belonged to Gilabert de Cruïlles. Uninhabited since the mid-20th century, it still preserves today, next to the church, the building called «el castell» and a rectory dated 1680; when worship was abandoned, some objects —the wooden doors with ironwork, a bell of 1590 and a bench with a long inscription— were moved to the church of Sant Martí de Romanyà d'Empordà. In the second half of September the Aplec is still held, with the singing of the Goigs to Sant Cebrià.