Village
Peratallada is a hamlet in the municipality of Forallac, in the Baix Empordà, province of Girona, declared a historic-artistic site as one of the best-preserved enclaves of medieval architecture in Spain. Its cobbled streets, arches and towers are arranged around the castle of Peratallada, dating from the 10th and 11th centuries and the earliest documented building in the place. Also preserved are the church of Sant Esteve, from the early 13th century, the Torre de l'Homenatge and the palace of Peratallada, from the 14th century, as well as the moat cut into the rock that surrounds the walls. It was an independent municipality until 1976, when it merged with Fonteta and Vulpellac to form Forallac. It holds the Herb Fair in April, its main festival in August and a medieval market in October.
Village
Vulpellac is a hamlet in the municipality of Forallac, in the Baix Empordà comarca, province of Girona, and houses the current town hall. It has a little over two hundred inhabitants. It was an independent municipality until 1977, when it joined Fonteta and Peratallada to form Forallac. Its old quarter is declared Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection): it was enclosed by a walled precinct, largely lost in the reforms of the 15th and 16th centuries, of which stretches of wall and the square-plan gate tower still survive. The complex is dominated by the castle-palace, documented since the 9th century and remodelled between the 15th and 16th centuries by the Sarriera family, who turned it into a sumptuous Gothic-Renaissance palace, next to the church of Sant Julià i Santa Basilissa.
Village
Fonteta is a small hamlet in the municipality of Forallac, in the Baix Empordà comarca (Girona), the starting point for hiking routes to the Gavarres massif. It had its own town hall until 1976, when it merged with those of Peratallada and Vulpellac to form the present-day municipality of Forallac; in the mid-19th century it had 340 registered inhabitants. In 2022 its population entity, which matches the old municipal boundary, had 282 registered inhabitants, of whom 207 lived in the hamlet itself.
Village
Canapost is a tiny, secluded hamlet in the municipality of Forallac, in the Baix Empordà, made up of little more than a dozen stone farmhouses grouped around the parish church of Sant Esteve; in 2022 it had 68 registered inhabitants and only 40 residents in the hamlet itself. It belonged to the former municipality of Peratallada until the creation of Forallac in 1975. The place is first mentioned in the year 901, under the name Caneposto, and in 1019 it is recorded again in connection with the founding of canonical life at the Seu de Girona. In 2005 a team of archaeologists discovered 18 anthropomorphic sarcophagi from the 10th century next to the church, dated by carbon-14 analysis.
Village
Fitor is a rural hamlet in the municipality of Forallac, in the Baix Empordà (Girona), located deep in the Gavarres mountains, on a wooded peninsula with an average altitude of about 200 metres. It was divided into seven vilelas, neighbourhoods of medieval origin, and belonged to the marquis of Castell de Torrent until the abolition of the seigneurial regime in the early 19th century; it then came under Fonteta, which merged with Peratallada and Vulpellac to form the present-day municipality of Forallac. Its scattered settlements were eventually abandoned owing to the poor profitability of forestry. It preserves its Romanesque church of Santa Coloma, of singular architecture, surrounded by cork-oak woodland.
Monument
The castle of Peralta, declared a bien cultural de interès nacional (a cultural property of national interest), stands in the village of Santa Susanna de Peralta, in the municipality of Forallac (Baix Empordà), on a small rocky hill. It retains a rectangular keep and notable walls, the work of the 11th to 14th centuries, though today in very poor condition: only the lower of the two barrel vaults it once had survives, and the south wall has collapsed. Of the walled enclosure that surrounded the tower, remains survive to the west, with a row of arrow slits, and others, much deteriorated, to the north and south. The fortress is documented since 1395, the year of the inventory of the possessions of the house of Cruïlles-Peratallada, although the place of Peralta is already mentioned in a document from the year 844.
Curiosity
An old lime kiln located in the village of Fonteta, in the municipality of Forallac, in the Baix Empordà. Since 2004 it has been listed as a cultural asset of local interest. The kiln bears the inscription 1915, though it cannot be ruled out that the structure is older and that this date corresponds to a repair, a change of owner or a resumption of activity. Lime burning was an important economic industry in Fonteta and Sant Climent de Peralta during the first third of the 20th century, and the kiln is currently being restored so that it can once again be fired.
Curiosity
A former brick and tile works of les Gavarres, listed as an asset of ethnological interest.
Monument
Sant Esteve de Canapost is a Romanesque church in the hamlet of Canapost, in the Baix Empordà, formed by two interconnected churches: one pre-Romanesque, from the 9th-10th centuries, on the south side, with a trapezoidal apse, and another Romanesque one from the 11th century on the north side, with a semicircular apse with opus spicatum walls. The place of Canapost is already recorded in a document from 901, and the church, apparently dedicated to Sant Clet, is mentioned in 1019; in the mid-13th century it became a suffragan of Sant Esteve de Peratallada, a condition it still holds. Notable is the unfinished bell tower, raised in the 12th century with Lombard decoration, and a Baroque portal opened in the 18th century. In recent restorations, mural paintings and medieval graves appeared in the cemetery.
Monument
Church with two rectangular naves of unequal length, adjoined by a short side to another building, in the Fitor hamlet, in the municipality of Forallac; dedicated to the martyr Santa Coloma de Sens, it holds a pilgrimage in her honour every third Sunday of October. Its fabric spans the 10th to the 12th centuries. The north nave, older, is covered with a barrel vault of slabs in book-fold pattern, and the south nave, somewhat later, preserves Romanesque wall paintings and an abside in opus spicatum with geometric frescoes. The bell tower, at the foot of the north nave, is square, rises two storeys above the roof and ends in a pyramidal spire; its second storey, with mullioned windows, is a 12th-century addition. The bishop of Girona Gotmar II consecrated it on 29 January 948, with lands, vineyards and the tithes of Fitor and several neighbouring hamlets.
Monument
Church of the Fonteta hamlet, in the municipality of Forallac (Baix Empordà), documented since 1057 as a suffragan of Santa Maria de la Bisbal. It is a Romanesque temple, probably built in the 11th century and remade in the 18th: from the medieval construction it retains the single nave, covered with a barrel vault, while the portal, a round arch with pilasters, frieze and classical-type cornice with a rose window above, is already Renaissance in style. During the 18th century the original abside was replaced by the current flat head, and the bell tower, with a square base, round-arched openings and a pavilion roof, was built in 1755. It is protected as a local cultural asset.
Monument
Church located about 200 metres north of the ruins of the castle of Peralta, in the municipality of Forallac. It preserves a semicircular abside of Romanesque origin from the 11th century, decorated with Lombard arcading and a double-splayed window, covered with a quarter-sphere vault, and a nave with a lunette vault and a lateral voussoired round-arch door on the south wall. The tower bell tower was left unfinished, on the north side, and later ended in a two-arch bell-gable. The nave was widened at the end of the 18th century, according to an inscription from 1791 on the facade. The church appears in an 1017 bull of Pope Benedict VIII among the possessions of the abbey of Sant Esteve de Banyoles, and a restoration of 1976-1977 recovered the temple's original wall surfaces.
Monument
Sant Esteve de Peratallada is a 12th-century Romanesque church built with well-squared ashlars about 200 metres north of the wall of Peratallada. It has two naves each topped by its own semicircular abside, side chapels and a sacristy added later, pointed vaults and a southern portal with large voussoirs, a rose window and three corbels. In the north nave is preserved the tomb of Gilabert de Cruïlles, lord of Peratallada, who died in 1348, with a funerary inscription and heraldic shields. The church appears in 1202 as Sancti Stephani de Petracissa in the homage of Gilabert de Cruïlles to the bishop of Girona, and in 1222 in an acknowledgment by Ermessenda de Peratallada; it formerly housed the veneration of the now-lost image of the Santíssima Majestat.
Monument
Sant Climent de Peralta has its origin in an old monastery situated in a secluded valley of the Gavarres, sheltered from the tramontane wind: a monastic cell where monks lived in the year 844. In 881 its ownership was granted by privilege of Carloman to the see of Gerona, confirmed in 898 and 1010, until at the end of the 11th century it was seized by the lords of Peratallada; in 1137 Dalmau de Peratallada returned it to the episcopal see and from then on it was a simple parish. Of the old church, with graves carved into the rock, only ruins remain today: in the 18th century the temple of the old monastery was abandoned and the new parish was built closer to the plain, to where the scattered farmhouse settlement had moved, today part of the municipality of Forallac.
Historical milestone
Vulpellac, Fonteta and Peratallada merged into a single municipality whose name is an acronym formed from syllables of the three villages; their mayors had taken the decision in 1971 and it took years to be processed.
Food and drink
Fresh curd cheese of curdled milk, unsalted, drained wrapped in a cloth that gives it its shape and its name; creamy in texture and milky and sweet in flavor, it is eaten as a dessert with honey or with sprinkled sugar.