Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Verges

What to see and do in Verges (Baix Empordà, Girona): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Activities

How far each place is from the centre of Verges

Sant Julià de Verges 50 m
Sant Pere de la Vall 3 km

Towns near Verges

What to see in La Tallada d'Empordà 2.4 km · 5 places
What to see in Ultramort 2.8 km · 3 places
What to see in Jafre 3.2 km · 2 places
What to see in Serra de Daró 4.2 km · 3 places
What to see in Parlavà 4.4 km · 3 places
What to see in Foixà 4.5 km · 4 places
What to see in Bellcaire d'Empordà 4.7 km · 3 places
What to see in Ullà 5.3 km · 2 places

Spain › Catalonia › Girona › Baix Empordà › Verges

What to see and do in Verges

Verges
Village
Verges is a town in the Baix Empordà, on the left bank of the Ter river, famous throughout Catalonia for its Processó de la Dansa de la Mort, held during Holy Week. Its name comes from the Latin Virigines, "virgins", already documented in 1019 and 1225. In medieval times the village's walls and castle were built, of which some stretches and defence towers survive today; the castle, declared Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), gave way at the end of the 19th century to a new building that today houses the Casa de la Vila. The parish church of Sant Julià i Santa Basilissa combines a Romanesque apse and half-nave from the 12th-13th centuries with neo-Gothic chapels and a neoclassical 19th-century bell tower. Its population has fluctuated between 1000 and 1200 inhabitants since the mid-19th century.
Castle and Fortified Enclosure of Verges
Monument
Medieval fortified enclosure of Verges (Baix Empordà), declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), built between the 13th and 14th centuries, with a circular tower of later construction, from the 15th-16th centuries. The town was a possession of the county of Empúries and was walled early on because of its importance as a bastion against the claims of the bishopric of Girona and the count-kings of Barcelona; as early as 1078 a viscount of Verges is documented. In 1385 royal forces laid siege to the town, a refuge for mercenaries in the service of the count of Empúries, which ended up surrendering to the king; during the Generalitat's war against John II, the castle was taken by royalist supporters in 1466 and 1471, and their artillery brought down two of its defensive towers.
Procession of the Dance of Death of Verges
Activity
A famous Holy Week procession in which, during the night from Holy Thursday to Good Friday, five skeletons dance through the streets of Verges to the beat of a drum, as part of the re-enactment of the Passion of Christ that winds through the village. The dance, revived in the town in 1666, has its roots in the medieval dances of death, once common throughout western Europe of the time but now vanished elsewhere in Catalonia, where they used to be performed in places such as Ripoll, Beget, Cadaqués and Perpignan. It is believed that its inclusion within the procession's cortege, rather than as a stand-alone act, is what has allowed its survival to this day, a unique case of continuity. Both the dance and the procession as a whole are declared a traditional festival of national interest.
Sant Pere de la Vall
Monument
Sant Pere de la Vall is a church in the municipality of Verges (Baix Empordà) included in the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia. It is a small building with a rectangular plan, with a single nave with a semicircular apse and a two-pitched tile roof, built of stone with buttresses at the ends of the side walls; on the main façade opens the round-arched doorway, with well-carved voussoirs and an upper drip moulding. It forms a unified architectural ensemble together with the fortified farmhouse of Can Rei and the rectory building. It is a Romanesque church of rural type, from the 11th century, with later remodellings; it is believed to have once been the parish of the district of Verges. On the interior walls it preserves 19th-century pictorial decoration.
Sant Julià de Verges
Monument
The parish church of Verges, on the plaça de la Vila, dedicated to Saint Julian and Saint Basilissa: it retains a 12th-13th-century Romanesque core with a semicircular apse and pointed vault, extended with side chapels in the 17th and 18th centuries and crowned by a Neo-Gothic octagonal bell tower built in the 20th century.