Village
Palau-sator is a municipality in the Baix Empordà, at the centre of the Empordà plain, with the Gavarres mountains as a backdrop. Of Roman origin according to archaeological finds in the area, it is recorded as Palatii Murorum in a document from the year 878; its castle, from the 10th and 11th centuries and declared Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), belonged from 1380 until the late 17th century to the secretary of Peter the Ceremonious, Bernat Miquel. Less well known than its neighbour Peratallada, it retains a medieval atmosphere in its streets, with remains of walls and the Torre de les Hores, crowned by a clock, an obligatory passage for entering the village. The municipality, with 311 inhabitants (INE 2025), also includes the hamlets of Fontclara, Sant Feliu de Boada and San Julián de Boada.
Monument
The church of Sant Julià de Boada is a Catalan Mozarabic church located in the village of Sant Julià de Boada, belonging to Palau-sator, and one of the oldest surviving chapels in the Baix Empordà: it is already documented in 934. Originally, possibly Visigothic, it consisted of a single nave separated from the apse by a triumphal arch of 36 voussoirs with imposts decorated with reliefs in the shape of wolf's teeth, a model almost unique in Catalonia. In the 10th century a second, already Mozarabic, reconstruction added a new bay separated by another arch, reinforced walls and pilasters and removed the original door. Built with poor materials and an irregular plan, the nave is covered with a half-barrel vault, and in the apse remains survive of fresco paintings in red and yellow that could date from the Romanesque period.
Monument
The castle of Palau-sator, raised on a rise in the very centre of the village to which it gives its name, is a construction of the 10th and 11th centuries transformed, in the 14th and 15th centuries, in the Gothic period, with the addition of a keep and the enlargement and walling of the fortification; it is declared a bien cultural de interès nacional (a cultural property of national interest). Documented since 994, it was for a long time linked to the Senesterra family, which acquired it in 1302 and sold it in 1379 to Bernat Miquel; it then passed to the Agullana family, the Sabater family, marquises of Benavent, and finally to Martí de Riquer i de Comelles, the last lord of Palau-sator. Originally, the interior was probably divided into three levels, with the entrance door on the first floor.
Monument
The Torre de les Hores, or Torre Portal, from the 14th century and about 20 metres high, served as a fortified access to the village of Palau-sator (Baix Empordà). It is the entrance gate to the medieval enclosure of the village: beside it Carrer del Portal begins, and its silhouette stands out above the rest of the buildings of the old core.
Monument
A walled enclosure surrounding the old town of Palau-sator (Baix Empordà), with streets and buildings from the 12th to the 16th centuries, protected as a bien cultural de interès nacional (a cultural property of national interest) in the category of a historic ensemble and presided over by the castle tower. The main tower, rectangular in plan with walls sloping in the shape of a truncated pyramid, is of Romanesque construction, from the 10th-11th centuries; beside it stretches of wall and one of the original gateways, that of the Torre de les Hores, survive. Outside the enclosure stands the church of Sant Pere, with a single nave and semicircular apse, from the end of the Romanesque period, with 16th-century chapels. The first document mentioning the place is from 994, and in 1338 the Senesterra family sold the castle to Bernat Miquel, secretary to Peter the Ceremonious, whose descendants held it until 1600.
Monument
A former 11th-century Benedictine monastic church, with a single nave with a pointed vault and a semicircular apse decorated with Lombard pilaster strips and three splayed windows; it preserves its original round-arched doorway and a Baroque one from 1639. Abbot Saborell obtained a royal charter for the monastery from King Odo in 889.
Monument
Romanesque church located outside the old fortified centre of Palau-sator, in the Baix Empordà, south of the village. It is a single-nave building with side chapels and a semicircular abside, covered with a pointed vault; on the main facade, facing west, a double round-arch portal without lintel or tympanum opens, and above it a small double-splayed window. The south side preserves a raised wall with arrow slits, a remnant of the temple's fortification. It was built at the end of the Romanesque period, between the 12th and 13th centuries; the side chapels, the choir and the sacristies date from the 16th-17th centuries. It was restored in 1943, a year recorded on a plaque next to the entrance door.